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ANDOVER-HARVARD THCOLOOICAL LIBRA
CAHBRIOai, MABBACHUBETTS

PRESIDENT WILSON'S
FOREIGN POLICY

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, PAPERS

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

JAMES BROWN SCOTT

Author of "A Survey of International Relations between the
United States and Germauy, August 1, 1914-April
6, 1917/' Editor of "Diplomatic Correspond-
ence between the United States and
Germany, August 1, 1914-
AprU 6, 1917 "

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed.

— The Unanimous Declaratum of the Thirteen United
States of America, July 4, IttS.

The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and
the rules of conduct governing individual jrelations between
citizens or subjects of a civili^ state are equally applicable
as between enlightened nations.

— Prescient Cleveland's Special Message to Congress,
December 18, 189S,

The world must be made safe for democracy.

— President Wilson*s War Address to Congress,
ApHl 2, 1917,

NEW YORK

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

AMERICAN BRANCH: 89 War Sttro Sthbst
LONDON, TORONTa MELBOURNE. AND BOMBAT

1918

piMM«aiVk

A!rDnvr-»-HAPVAJlD

JUL 3 1918

AhfDOVER

BT THE

OXFOBD UNIVBR8ITY PRESS

AlUBICAN BSAHCB

•ANWAT, n. A

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE

The publishers announce, separate and distinct from, but to be
used in connection with the present volume, the Diplomatic Cor-
respondence Between the United States and Germany, from August 1,
1914, to April 6, 1917, the date of the declaration of a state of war
by the Congress of the United States against the Imperial German
Government, and a Survey of International Relations Between the
United States and Germany, during the same period. These volumes
are of the same format as President Wilson's Foreign Policy.

President Wilson's views upon foreign polifey were important
during the neutrality of the United States, and it is even more
important to understand them now, inasmuch as they are the views
of the United States at war and indicate in no uncertain way the
attitude which the United States under President Wilson's guidance
may be expected to assume in the negotiations which must one day
bring about peace to a long-suffering and war-ridden world. This
volume is of interest to Mr. Wilson 'g countrymen; it is of interest
to the belligerents ; it is of interest to the neutrals, whose cause Mr.
Wilson has championed.

The differences of opinion, crystallizing into opposition, and
resulting eventually in war between the United States and (Germany,
are stated clearly, unmistakably, and officially in the Diplomatic
Correspondence between the two Governments since the outbreak of
the European War in 1914, and up to the declaration of war by
the United States because of the controversies between the two
countries. The Diplomatic Correspondence makes the case of the
United States, just as the Diplomatic Correspondence is the defense
of Ctermany. Upon this Correspondence each country rests its case,
and upon this Correspondence each is to be judged. It is thought
best to present it in a volume by itself, disconnected from narrative

iii

iv PUBLISHERS' PREFACE

or from correspondence with other belligerent nations, which would
indeed have been interesting but not material to the present case.

The Survey of International Relations Between the United States
and Germany aims to give an authentic account of the conduct of
the United States during the period of its neutrality, and the attitude
of the Imperial Qovemment towards the United States. An extended
introduction is prefixed, setting forth the views of monarchs, states-
men, and publicists of that country, showing the German conception
of the State, International Policy and International Law. The
narrative giving the views of both Governments is based upon the
documents contained in the volume of Diplomatic Correspondence
Betweien the United States and (Germany.

The publishers have pleasure in announcing that Mr. Scott has
directed that the royalties due him for these volumes be presented to
the Department of State War Belief Work Committee, of which Mrs.
Robert Lansing is President.

Oxford University Press.
American Branch.

April 16, 1918.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAOM

Introduction xi-xiv

Address on Mexican Affairs, to the Congress, August 27,

1913 1-10

Address at rededication of Congress Hall, Philadelphia,

October 25, 1913 11-18

Address before Southern Commercial Congress, Mobile,

October 27, 1913 * . 19-26

First Annual Address to the Congress, December 2, 1913 . 27-30

Address to the Congress on Panama Tolls, March 5, 1914 . 31-32

Address to the Congress on Mexican Affairs, April 20. 1914 33-37

Address at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, May 11, 1914 38-42

Address at unveiling of statue to memory of Commodore

Barry, Washington, May 16, 1914 43-47

Address to the Oraduating Class of the United States Naval

Academy, June 5, 1914 48-54

Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914 . 55-65

American Neutrality, Appeal to Citizens of the Bepublic,

August 18, 1914 66-68

Address before American Bar Association, Washington,

October 20, 1914 69-70

Second Annual Address to the Congress, December 8, 1914 71-83

Address at the Associated Press Luncheon, New York,

April 20, 1915 84-91

Address to newly naturalized American citizens, Philadel-
phia, May 10, 1915 92-97

Address at Luncheon tendered the President by the

Mayor's Committee, New York, May 17, 1915 98-101

Address at the Pan-American Financial Conference, Wash-
ington, May 24, 1915 102-105

Address to the Daughters of the American Revolution,

Washington, October 11, 1915 . ' 106-114

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAOBS

Address at fiftieth anniversary dinner of the Manhattan

Club, New York, November 4, 1915 115-125

Third Annual Address to the Congress, December 7, 1915 . 126-153

Address before the Pan American Scientific Congress,

Washington, January 6, 1916 154-162

Address delivered at Cleveland, Ohio, January 29, 1916 . 163-175

Letter to Senator Stone, February 24, 1916 .... 176-178

Letter to Representative Pou, February 29, 1916 . . 179-180

Address delivered before the Congress, April 19, 1916 . 181-188

Address at first annual assemblage of the League to Enforce

Peace, May 27, 1916 189-195

Address on Memorial Day, Arlington, May 30, 1916 . . 196-202

Address to the Graduating Class at the United States Mili-
tary Academy, June 13, 1916 203-211

Address on Flag Day, Washington, June 14, 1916 . . 212-217

Address before Salesmanship Congress, Detroit, July 10,

1916 218-224

Address at Toledo, July 10, 1916 225-226

Address on accepting renomination for the Presidency,

September 2, 1916 227-234

Peace Notes to the Belligerent Governments, dated Decem-
ber 18, 1916 235-244

Address to the Senate, January 22, 1917 .... 245-254

Address to the Congress, announcing the severance of diplo-
matic relations with Germany, February 3, 1917 . . 255-260

Address on Armed Neutrality, before the Congress,

February 26, 1917 261-267

Second Inaugural Address, Washington, March 5, 1917 . 268-273

Address to the Congress recommending declaration of a

state of war with Germany, April 2, 1917 . . . 274-287

Address to his fellow-countrymen concerning the war with

Germany, April 15, 1917 288-294

Address at the dedication of the Bed Cross Building, Wash-
ington, May 12, 1917 295-299

Address on Memorial Day at Arlington, May 30, 1917 . 300-302

Address at the Confederate Reunion, Washington, June 6,

1917 303-307

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

PA«Xi

Address on Flag Day, Washington, June 14, 1917 . . 308-317

Commonication to the Provisional Gtovemment of Russia^

June 9, 1917 318-321

Reply to the Peace appeal of the Pope, August 27, 1917 . 322-325

Address before the American Federation of Labor, Buffalo,,

November 12, 1917 326-336

Telegram to the Northwest Loyalty Meetings, St. Paul,

November 16, 1917 337

Telegram to the King of the Belgians, November 17, 1917 . 338

Address to the Congress, reconmiending the declaration of
a state of war between the United States and Austria-
Hungary, December 4, 1917 339-^53

Address to the Congress on the conditions of peace, Jan-
uary 8, 1918 354-363

Address to the Congress on the Addresses of the German
Chancellor and the Austro-Hungarian Minister for
Foreign Affairs, February 11, 1918 364-373

Address at opening of Third Liberty Loan campaign,

Baltimore, April 6, 1918 374-380

APPENDED

1 — ^Mexico. The record of a conversation with President

Wilson. By Samuel G. Blythe 383-391

2 — The President's Mexican Policy — ^Presented in an
authorized interview by Secretary of the Interior
FranHin K. Lane, July 16, 1916 392-406

3 — Article on Mexican question, in Ladies* Home Journal,

October, 1916 407-410

4 — ^Memorandum on the right of American citizens to travel
upon armed merchant ships, transmitted to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Rep-
resentatives, March 4, 1916 411-424

INTRODUCTION

President Wilson's messages and addresses, delivered daring his
first term of office and within the first few months of his second
inauguration, cover a wide range of subjects, as was natural, given
the international situation and the measures necessary to be taken
in order to cope with it. They fall, logically, into two classes : those
dealing with foreign and those dealing with domestic affairs. The
first category is susceptible of a threefold division: those dealing
with the neutrality of the United States in the war which may be said
to have begun by Germany's declaration of a state of war against
Russia on the 1st day of August, 1914; those delivered when war
between the United States and Germany loomed large upon the
horizon and seemed, unless the unexpected should happen, to be but
a mere question of time; and those delivered after the outbreak of
war, when the ship of state, so to speak, had cast off its neutral
moorings, and had put out to sea with its allies in the contest of
democracy against autocratic rulers apparently bound on world
domination.

And yet, if we analyze President Wilson's messages and addresses
on foreign policy — for his views on domestic questions may be omitted,
except in so far as they relate to foreign policy — ^we find that, whether
delivered before the war of 1914, during the period of American
neutrality, or after the outbreak of the war between Germany and
the United States, when President Wilson was speaking as the chief
executive of a belligerent country, they are but the varying expres-
sions of a single, definite, conscious purpose, namely, the strengthening
of constitutional government where it existed, leavened with democ-
racy, and the introduction of constitutional government where it did
not exist, of a democratic nature or tendency. The future, in President
Wilson's conception, belongs to democracy — ^the world must be made
safe for democracy; and, although he does not say it in express
terms, democracy must be made safe for the world by instruction in
its duties as well as in its rights and by the performance of its duties
in the same degree as the insistence upon its rights. The strain of
democracy runs through all of his messages and addresses as a golden
thread, and the means to bring about constitutional government —

xii INTRODUCTION

which, in the President's mind, is apparently synonjonous with
democratic government — ^is from within, not from without, is by
moral, not by physical force. Thus, in an address delivered on
June 30, 1916, before the Press Club in New York City, President
AYilson said:

I have not read history without observing that the greatest forces
in the world and the only permanent forces are the moral forces.

We have the evidence of a very competent witness, namely, the
first Napoleon, who said that as he looked back in the last days of
his life upon so much as he knew of human history he had to record
the judgment that force had never accomplished anything that was
permanent.

Force will not accomplish anything that is permanent, I venture
to say, in the great struggle which is now going on on the other
side of the sea. The permanent things will be accomplished after-
wards, when the opinion of mankind is brought to bear upon the
issues, and the only thing that will hold the world steady is this same
silent, insistent, all-powerful opinion of mankind.

Force can sometimes hold things steady until opinion has time
to form, but no force that was ever exerted, except in response to
that opinion, was ever a conquering and predominant force.

I think the sentence in American history that I myself am proudest
of is that in the introductory sentences of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, where the writers say that a due respect for the opinion
of mankind demands that they state the reasons for what they are
about to do.

President Wilson believes and therefore states, as will be apparent
even to the casual reader of his messages and addresses on foreign
policy, that there is but one standard of justice for the individual
as well as for the state; that what is wrong for the individual
cannot be right for the state, and what is right for the state should
not be wrong for the individual. Thus, in the fateful address to the
Congress of the United States on April 2, 1917, advocating the
declaration of war against the Imperial German Government, he
said, after referring to his addresses of the 22d of January, of the
3d of February, and of the 26th of February to the Congress :

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace
and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic
power and to set up amongst the really free and self -governed peoples
of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth
insure the observance of those principles. . . . We are at the begin-
ning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards
of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed

INTRODUCTION xiii

among nations and their governments that are observed among the
individual citizens of civilized states.

This standard which he set for others he has exacted of the
United States; and to public opinion, which he asserts to be the
greatest of forces, both he and the nation whereof he is the chief
executive, have bowed. Thus, President Wikon urged the Congress
to repeal the provision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912,
exempting vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States
from the payment of tolls, on the ground that the exemption of
American vessels — ^for it is only American vessels that can engage in
the coastwise trade of the United States — if not contrary in fact
to the provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of November 18,
1901, between the United States and Great Britain, came nevertheless
in conflict with the public opinion of the world and was inconsistent
with the provisions of that treaty and therefore with the plighted word
of the United States. In his address to the Congress on March 5,
1914, he said :

Whatever may be our own differences of opinion concerning this
much debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United
States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one
interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am
asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty ; its language we
accepted, if we did not originate it ; and we are too big, too powerful,
too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a too strained or refined
reading the words of our own promises just because we have power
enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing
to do is the only tlung we can afford to do, a voluntary witihdrawid
from a position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We
ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we
were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for
generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble
or hesitation.

It will be observed that, in this statement of the case, a strained or
even a defensible interpretation was not to be made in order to profit
the United States, for morality and justice go hand in hand. An
acquisition at the expense of morality and of justice and the posses-
sions of nations are not to be seized by physical force, any more than
the property of the individual is to be taken by the strong hand.
This conception, axiomatic with President Wilson, has been repeatedly
stated by him in his public addresses, and never more solemnly than
in his address of April 2, 1917, to the Congress, advocating the war
with Germany :

xiv INTRODUCTION

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no
dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material com-
pensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one
of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied
when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the
freedom of nations can make them.

Planting himself squarely upon the foundations of right, interna-
tional as well as national, advocating for nations the standard of
justice prevailing among individuals, disclaiming any acquisitions
for his country which the law, even of his own country, as interpreted
by the public opinion of mankind, did not permit, President Wilson
might well say, as he did in his address of June 30, 1916, before the
Press Club in the City of New York :

So, gentlemen, I am willing, no matter what my personal fortunes
may be, to play for the verdict of mankind.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

Washirgtoiv, D. C.
January 11, 1918.

PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, PAPERS

ADDRESS ON MEXICAN AFFAIRS DELIV-

ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE

TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS,

AUGUST 27, 1918

A sympathetic yet diBcrimiiuiting critic of Mexico, the late John W.
Fofiter, formerly Secretary of State of the United States, was accustomed to say
that the one great and fundamental mistake of the late Porfirio Diaz, President
of Mexico from 1876-1880, 1884-1911, was that he did not educate his fellow-
countrymen in the practice and the responsibilities of constitutional government,
and that, because of his failure so to do, he was leaving his countrymen without
training in government and without a leader to succeed him trained in a con-
stitutional regime. From time to time rebellions broke out, which were
speedily crushed. In 1911, however, a serious insurrection, under the leader-
ship of Francisco I. Madero, caused President Diaz, his Vice-President and
the members of his cabinet to resign; whereupon Francisco de la Barra, who
had been appointed Secretary of State, succeeded to the presidency ad interim
until an election could be held. At this election, held on October 15, 1911, Mr.
Madero was chosen President of Mexico. A rebellion under the leadership of
Felix Diaz, nephew of the late President, broke out, and as a consequence
Madero and his Vice-President, yielding to the pressure of General Victoriano
Huerta, resigned under duress and Huerta, Secretary of War, became by the
resignation of Madero, the President, Vice-President and the Minister of Foreign
Ajffairs, President ad interim. His authority as such was not recognized by
his countrymen as a whole, although it might have been had not Madero and
the Vice-President, on their way from the palace to the prison, been assas-
sinated, in which assassination, rightly or wrongly, Huerta was implicated.
Carranza, under Madero, Governor of the State of Chihuahua, opposed Huerta,
and, gathering around him a strong body of partisans under the title of Con-
Mtitutionaliete, he was eventually recognized by the United States as lE^esident
de facto on October 19, 1915. He was elected President on March 11, 1917; an
American Ambassador had in the meantime been appointed, on February 25,
1916, and had repaired to Mexico, and on February 17, 1917, Carranza's govern-
ment was recognized by the United States not merely as the de facto but as the
duly constituted government of Mexico.

Gentlemen op the Congress:

It is clearly my duty to lay before you, very fully and

without reservation, the facts concerning our present

relations with the Republic of Mexico. The deplorable

posture of affairs in Mexico I need not describe, but I

2 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

deem it my duty to speak very frankly of what this
Govermnent has done and should seek to do in fulfillment
of its obligation to Mexico herself, as a friend and neigh-
bor, and to American citizens whose lives and vital inter-
ests are daily affected by the distressing conditions which
now obtain beyond our southern border.

Those conditions touch us very nearly. Not merely
because they lie at our very doors. That of course makes
us more vividly and more constantly conscious of them,
and every instinct of neighborly interest and sympathy
is aroused and quickened by them; but that is only one
element in the determination of our duty. We are glad
to call ourselves the friends of Mexico, and we shall, I
hope, have many an occasion, in happier times as well as
in these days of trouble and confusion, to show that our
friendship is genuine and disinterested, capable of sacri-
fice and every generous manifestation. The peace, pros-
perity, and contentment of Mexico mean more, much
more, to us than merely an enlarged field for our com-
merce and enterprise. They mean an enlargement of the
field of self-government and the realization of the hopes
and rights of a nation with whose best aspirations, so
long suppressed and disappointed, we deeply sympathize.
We shall yet prove to the Mexican people that we know
how to serve them without first thinking how we shall
serve ourselves.

But we are not the only friends of Mexico. The whole
world desires her peace and progress; and the whole
world is interested as never before. Mexico lies at last
where all the world looks on. Central America is about
to be touched by the great routes of the world's trade

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 8

and intercourse running free from ocean to ocean at the
Isthmus. The future has much in store for Mexico, as
for all the States of Central America ; but the best gifts
can come to her only if she be ready and free to receive
them and to enjoy them honorably. America in particu-
lar — ^America north and south and upon both continents —
waits upon the development of Mexico ; and that devel-
opment can be sound and lasting only if it be the product
of a genuine freedom, a just and ordered government
f oimded upon law. Only so can it be peaceful or f ruitfid
of the benefits of peace. Mexico has a great and enviable
future before her, if only she choose and attain the paths
of honest constitutional government.

The present circumstances of the Republic, I deeply
regret to say, do not seem to promise even the f oimdationa
of such a peace. We have waited many months, months
full of peril and anxiety, for the conditions there to
improve, and they have not improved. They have grown
worse, rather. The territory in some sort controlled by
the provisional authorities at Mexico City has grown
smaller, not larger. The prospect of the pacification of
the coimtry, even by arms, has seemed to grow more and
more remote; and its pacification by the authorities at
the capital is evidently impossible by any other means
than force. DiflBiculties more and more entangle those
who claim to constitute the legitimate government of the
Republic. They have not made good their claim in fact.
Their successes in the field have proved only temporary.
War and disorder, devastation and confusion, seem to
threaten to become the settled fortune of the distracted
country. As friends we could wait no longer for a solu-

4 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

tion which every week seemed further away. It was
our duty at least to volunteer our good ofl&ces — ^to offer
to assist, if we might, in effecting some arrangement
which would bring relief and peace and set up a univer-
sally acknowledged political authority there.

Accordingly, I took the liberty of sending the Hon.
John Lind, formerly governor of Minnesota, as my per-
sonal spokesman and representative, to the City of
Mexico, with the following instructions:

** Press very earnestly upon the attention of those
who are now exercising authority or wielding influ-
ence in Mexico the following considerations and
advice :

**The Government of the United States does not feel
at liberty any longer to stand inactively by while it
becomes daily more and more evident that no real prog-
ress is being made towards the establishment of a govern-
ment at the City of Mexico which the country will obey
and respect.

"The Government of the United States does not
stand in the same case with the other great Govern-
ments of the world in respect of what is happening
or what is likely to happen in Mexico. We offer our
good ofl&ces, not only because of our genuine desire to
play the part of a friend, but also because we are
expected by the powers of the world to act as Mexico's
nearest friend.

"We wish to act in these circumstances in the spirit
of the most earnest and disinterested friendship. It is
our purpose in whatever we do or propose in this per-
plexing and distressing situation not only to pay the
most scrupulous regard to the sovereignty and inde-
pendence of Mexico — ^that we take as a matter of course
to which we are bound by every obligation of right and

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 6

honor — but also to give every possible evidence that we
act in the interest of Mexico alone, and not in the inter-
est of any person or body of persons who may have per-
sonal or property claims in Mexico which they may feel
that they have the right to press. We are seeking to
counsel Mexico for her own good and in the interest of
her own peace, and not for any other purpose whatever.
The Government of the United States would deem itself
discredited if it had any selfish or ulterior purpose in
transactions where the peace, happiness, and prosperity
of a whole people are involved. It is acting as its
friendship for Mexico, not as any selfish interest,
dictates.

"The present situation in Mexico is incompatible
with the fulfillment of international obligations on the
part of Mexico, with the civilized development of Mexico
herself, and with the maintenance of tolerable political
and economic conditions in Central America. It is
upon no common occasion, therefore, that the United
States offers her counsel and assistance. All America
cries out for a settlement.

**A satisfactory settlement seems to us to be condi-
tioned on —

** (a) An immediate cessation of fighting throughout
Mexico, a definite armistice solemnly entered into and
scrupulously observed;

**(6) Security given for an early and free election
in wMdi all will agree to take part ;

**(c) The consent of Gen. Huerta to bind himself
not to be a candidate for election as President of the
Republic at this election ; and

"(d) The agreement of all parties to abide by the
results of the election and co-operate in the most loyal
way in organizing and supporting the new administra-
tion.

6 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

"The Govenunent of the United States will be glad
to play any part in this settlement or in its carrying
out which it can play honorably and consistently with
international right. It pledges itself to recognize and
in every way possible and proper to assist the adminis-
tration chosen and set up in Mexico in the way and on
the conditions suggested.

"Taking all the existing conditions into considera-
tion, the Government of the United States can conceive
of no reasons sufficient to justify those who are now at-
tempting to shape the policy or exercise the authority
of Mexico in declining the offices of friendship thus
offered. Can Mexico give the civilized world a satis-
factory reason for rejecting our good offices ? If Mexico
can suggest any better way in which to show our friend-
ship, serve the people of Mexico, and meet our inter-
national obligations, we are more than willing to con-
sider the suggestion.''

Mr. Lind executed his delicate and difficult mission
with singular tact, firmness, and good judgment, and
made clear to the authorities at the City of Mexico not
only the purpose of his visit but also the spirit in which
it had been undertaken. But the proposals he submitted
were rejected, in a note the full text of which I take the
liberty of laying before you.

I am led to believe that they were rejected partly
because the authorities at Mexico City had been grossly
misinformed and misled upon two points. They did not
realize the spirit of the American people in this mat-
ter, their earnest friendliness and yet sober determina-
tion that some just solution be found for the Mexican
difficulties; and they did not believe that the present

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 7

admimstration spoke, through Mr. Lind, for the people
of the United States. The effect of this unfortunate
misunderstanding on their part is to leave them singu-
larly isolated and without friends who can effectually
aid them. So long as the misunderstanding continues
we can only await the time of their awakening to a
realization of the actual facts. We cannot thrust our
good offices upon them. The situation must be given
a little more time to work itself out in the new circum-
stances; and I believe that only a little while will be
necessary. For the circumstances are new. The rejec-
tion of our friendship makes them new and will inevi-
tably bring its own alterations in the whole aspect of
affairs. The actual situation of the authorities at
Mexico City will presently be revealed.

Meanwhile, what is it our duty to do ? Clearly, every-
thing that we do must be rooted in patience and done
with calm and disinterested deliberation. Impatience
on our part would be childish, and would be fraught
with every risk of wrong and folly. We can afford to
exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which
realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it. It
was our duty to offer our active assistance. It is now
our duty to show what true neutrality will do to enable
the people of Mexico to set their affairs in order again
and wait for a further opportunity to offer our friendly
counsels. The door is not closed against the resumption,
either upon the initiative of Mexico or upon our own,
of the effort to bring order out of the confusion by
friendly co-operative action, should fortunate occasion
offer.

8 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

While we wait the contest of the rival forces will
undoubtedly for a little while be sharper than ever, just
because it will be plain that an end must be made of the
existing situation, and that very promptly ; and with the
increased activity of the contending factions will come,
it is to be feared, increased danger to the noncombatants
in Mexico as well as to those actually in the field of
battle. The position of outsiders is always particularly
trying and full of hazard where there is civil strife
and a whole country is upset. We should earnestly urge
all Americans to leave Mexico at once, and should assist
them to get away in every way possible — ^not because
we would mean to slacken in the least our efforts to
safeguard their lives and their interests, but because it
is imperative that they should take no unnecessary risks
when it is physically possible for them to leave the coun-
try. We should let everyone who assumes to exercise
authority in any part of Mexico know in the most
unequivocal way that we shall vigilantly watch the f or-
times of those Americans who cannot get away, and
shall hold those responsible for their sufferings and
losses to a definite reckoning. That can be and will be
made plain beyond the possibility of a misunder-
standing.

For the rest, I deem it my duty to exercise the
authority conferred upon me by the law of March 14,
1912, to see to it that neither side to the struggle now
going on in Mexico receive any assistance from this
side the border. I shall follow the best practice of
nations in the matter of neutrality by forbidding the
exportation of arms or munitions of war of any kind

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 9

from the United States to any part of the Republic of
Mexico — a policy suggested by several interesting prece-
dents and certainly dictated by many manifest con-
siderations of practical expediency. We cannot in the
circumstances be the partisans of either party to the
contest that now distracts Mexico, or constitute our-
selves the virtual umpire between them.

I am happy to say that several of the great Govern-
ments of the world have given this Government their
generous moral support in urging upon the provisional
authorities at the City of Mexico the acceptance of our
proffered good ofl&ces in the spirit in which they were
made. We have not acted in this matter under the
ordinary principles of international obligation. All
the world expects us in such circumstances to act as
Mexico's nearest friend and intimate adviser. This is
our immemorial relation towards her. There is nowhere
any serious question that we have the moral right in the
case or that we are acting in the interest of a fair settle-
ment and of good government, not for the promotion of
some selfish interest of our own. If further motive
were necessary than our own good will towards a sister
Republic and our own deep concern to see peace and
order prevail in Central America, this consent of man-
kind to what we are attempting, this attitude of the
great nations of the world towards what we may attempt
in dealing with this distressed people at our doors,
should make us feel the more solemnly bound to go to
the utmost length of patience and forbearance in this
painful and anxious business. The steady pressure of
moral force will before many days break the barriers

10 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of pride and prejudice down, and we shall triumph as
Mexico's friends sooner than we could triumph as her
enemies — ^and how much more handsomely, with how
much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of
honor I

ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE

REDEDICATION OF CONGRESS HALL.

PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 25, 1918

An American reader does not need to be informed that the independence of
the United States was proclaimed in Philadelphia July 4, 1776, and that the
building in which the Continental Congress then met is called Independence Hall
because of this Declaration. In that building the Congress regularly sat in the
early and stormy days of the Revolution, and in that building the Congress of the
United States held its sessions from 1790 to 1800, when the seat of government
was transferred from Philadelphia to Washington in the District of Columbia.
The rooms occupied by the Continental Congress have been preserved in their
original condition and opened to the public. Not so the building connected with
Independence Hall, in which the Congress of Washington's and Adams' adminis-
trations assembled.

The Congress that met in Philadelphia during the first two administra-
tions of the Republic has claims upon our remembrance, and the good people of
Philadelphia were happily inspired when they decided to restore the original
form and condition of these quarters. This was speedily, successfully, and
admirably done, and the building known as Congress Hall was dedicated on
October 25, 1913, in the presence of a distinguished gathering, on which occa-
sion President Wilson, on behalf of the Government, delivered the following
address.

YouB Honor, Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
No American could stand in this place to-day and
think of the circumstances which we are come together
to celebrate without being most profoundly stirred.
There has come over me since I sat down here a sense
of deep solemnity, because it has seemed to me that I
saw ghosts crowding — a great ^^ssemblage of spirits,
no longer visible, but whose influence we still feel as we
feel the molding power of history itself. The men who
sat in this hall, to whom we now look back with a touch
of deep sentiment, were men of flesh and blood, face
to face with extremely difficult problems. The popu-
lation of the United States then was hardly three times

12 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the present population of the city of Philadelphia, and
yet that was a Nation as this is a Nation, and the men
who spoke for it were setting their hands to a work
which was to last, not only that their people might be
happy, but that an example might be lifted up for the
instruction of the rest of the world.

I like to read the quaint old accounts such as Mr.
Day has read to us this afternoon. Strangers came
then to America to see what the young people that had
sprung up here were like, and they found men in coun-
sel who knew how to construct governments. They
found men deliberating here who had none of the
appearance of novices, none of the hesitation of men
who did not know whether the work they were doing
was going to last or not ; men who addressed themselves
to a problem of construction as familiarly as we attempt
to carry out the traditions of a Government established
these 137 years.

I feel to-day the compulsion of these men, the com-
pulsion of examples which were set up in this place.
And of what do their examples remind us? They re-
mind us not merely of public service but of public
service shot through with principle and honor. They
were not histrionic men. They did not say —

Look upon us as upon those who shall hereafter be
illustrious.

They said:

"Look upon us who are doing the first free work of
constitutional liberty in the world, and who must do it
in soberness and truth, or it will not last.'*

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 18

Politics, ladies and gentlemen, is made up in just
about equal parts of comprehension and sympathy. No
man ought to go into politics who does not comprehend
the task that he is going to attack. He may compre-
hend it so completely that it daunts him, that he doubts
whether his own spirit is stout enough and his own mind
able enough to attempt its great undertakings, but un-
less he comprehend it he ought not to enter it. After
he has comprehended it, there should come into his
mind those profound impulses of sympathy which con-
nect him with the rest of mankind, for politics is a
business of interpretation, and no men are fit for it who
do not see and seek more than their own advantage and
interest.

We have stimibled upon many unhappy circum-
stances in the hundred years that have gone by since
the event that we are celebrating. Almost all of them
have come from self-centered men, men who saw in
their own interest the interest of the country, and who
did not have vision enough to read it in wider terms, in
the universal terms of equity and justice and the rights
of mankind. I hear a great many people at Fourth of
July celebrations laud the Declaration of Independence
who in between Julys shiver at the plain language of
our bills of rights. The Declaration of Independence
was, indeed, the first audible breath of liberty; but the
substance of liberty is written in such documents as the
declaration of rights attached, for example, to the first
constitution of Virginia which was a model for the
similar documents read elsewhere into our great funda-
mental charters. That document speaks in very plain

14 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

terms. The men of that generation did not hesitate
to say that every people has a right to choose its own
forms of government — not once, but as often as it
pleases — and to accommodate those forms of govern-
ment to its existing interests and circmnstances. Not
only to establish but to alter is the fundamental prin-
ciple of self-government.

We are just as much under compulsion to study the
particular circumstances of our own day as the gentle-
men were who sat in this hall and set us precedents,
not of what to do but of how to do it. Liberty inheres
in the circumstances of the day. Human happiness con-
sists in the life which human beings are leading at the
time that they live. I can feed my memory as hap-
pily upon the circumstances of the revolutionary and
constitutional period as you can, but I cannot feed all
my purposes with them in Washington now. Every
day problems arise which wear some new phase and
aspect, and I must fall back, if I would serve my con-
science, upon those things which are fundamental rather
than upon those things which are superficial, and ask
myself this question, How are you going to assist in
some small part to give the American people and, by
example, the peoples of the world more liberty, more
happiness, more substantial prosperity; and how are
you going to make that prosperity a common heritage
instead of a selfish possession? I came here to-day
partly in order to feed my own spirit. I did not come
in compliment. When I was asked to come I knew
immediately upon the utterance of the invitation that
I had to come, that to be absent would be as if I refused

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 15

to drink once more at the original fountains of inspira-
tion for our own Government.

The men of the day which we now celebrate had a
very great advantage over us, ladies and gentlemen, in
this one particular: Life was simple in America then.
All men shared the same circumstances in almost equal
degree. We think of Washington, for example, as an
aristocrat, as a man separated by training, separated by
family and neighborhood tradition, from the ordinary
people of the rank and file of the country. Have you
forgotten the personal history of George Washington?
Do you not know that he struggled as poor boys now
struggle for a meager and imperfect education ; that he
worked at his surveyor's tasks in the lonely forests;
that he knew all the roughness, all the hardships, all
the adventure, all the variety of the common life of that
day; and that if he stood a little stiffly in this place, if
he looked a little aloof, it was because life had dealt
hardly with him? All his sinews had been stiffened by
the rough work of making America. He was a man
of the people, whose touch had been with them since
the day he saw the light first in the old Dominion of
Virginia. And the men who came after him, men, some
of whom had drunk deep at the sources of philosophy
and of study, were, nevertheless, also men who on this
side of the water knew no complicated life but the simple
life of primitive neighborhoods. Our task is very much
more difficult. That sympathy which alone interprets
public duty is more difficult for a public man to acquire
now than it was then, because we live in the midst of
circumstances and conditions infinitely complex.

16 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

No man can boast that he understands America, No
man can boast that he has lived the life of America,
as ahnost every man who sat in this hall in those days
could boast. No man can pretend that except by com-
mon counsel he can gather into his consciousness what
the varied life of this people is. The duty that we have
to keep open eyes and open hearts and accessible under-
standings is a very much more difl&cult duty to perform
than it was in their day. Yet how much more impor-
tant that it should be performed, for fear we make
infinite and irreparable blunders. The city of Wash-
ington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy
there to forget what the rest of the United States is
thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance
that almost all the windows of the White House and
its ofl&ces open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to
the banks of the Potomac and then out into Virginia
and on to the heavens themselves, and that as I sit there
I can constantly forget Washington and remember the
United States. Not that I would intimate that all of
the United States lies south of Washington, but there
is a serious thing back of my thought. J£ you think
too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to
be worth re-electing. You are so apt to forget that the
comparatively small number of persons, numerous as
they seem to be when they swarm, who come to Wash-
ington to ask for things, do not constitute an important
proportion of the population of the country, that it is
constantly necessary to come away from Washington
and renew one's contact with the people who do not
swarm there, who do not ask for anything, but who do

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 17

trust you without their personal counsel to do your
duty. Unless a man gets these contacts he grows weaker
and weaker. He needs them as Hercules needed the
touch of mother earth. If you lift him up too high or
he lifts himself too high, he loses the contact and there*
fore loses the inspiration.

I love to think of those plain men, however far from
plain their dress sometimes was, who assembled in this
hall. One is startled to think of the variety of cos-
tume and color which would now occur if we were let
loose upon the fashions of that age. Men's lack of
taste is largely concealed now by the limitations of
fashion. Yet these men, who sometimes dressed like
the peacock, were, nevertheless, of the ordinary flight
of their time. They were birds of a feather ; they were
birds come from a very simple breeding; they were
much in the open heaven. They were beginning, when
there was so little to distract their attention, to show
that they could live upon fundamental principles of
government. We talk those principles, but we have not
time to absorb them. We have not time to let them into
our blood, and thence have them translated into the
plain mandates of action.

The very smallness of this room, the very simplicity
of it all, all the suggestions which come from its restora-
tion, are reassuring things — ^things which it becomes a
man to realize. Therefore my theme here to-day, my
only thought, is a very simple one. Do not let us go
back to the annals of those sessions of Congress to find
out what to do, because we live in another age and the
circumstances are absolutely different; but let us be

18 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

men of that kind; let us feel at every turn the com-
pulsions of principle and of honor which they felt; let
us free our vision from temporary circumstances and
look abroad at the horizon and take into our lungs the
great air of freedom which has blown through this
country and stolen across the seas and blessed people
everywhere; and, looking east and west and north
south, let us remind ourselves that we are the custodians
in some degree, of the principles which have made
free and governments just

ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOUTH-
ERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS HELD AT
MOBILE, ALA., OCTOBER 27, 1913

The Southern Commercial Congress was organized Deoemher 8, 1908, in
the City of Washington, District of Columbia, primarily, as its name indicates,
for the interests of the South — which are, however, inextricably bound up with
the interests of all the States of the Union. Its annual meetings are notable
occasions, and not the least notable was the meeting at Mobile, Alabama, in
October, 1913, where President Wilson delivered an address largely dealing with
the relations which should exist between the United States and the other Repub-
lics of the New World, an address which the peoples of those Republics considered
memorable.

Tour Excellency, Mr. Chairman:

It is with unaffected pleaBure that I find myself
here to-day. I once before had the pleasure, in another
southern city, of addressing the Southern Gommercial
Congress. I then spoke of what the future seemed to
liold in store for this region, which so many of us love
and toward the future of which we all look forward
'with, so much confidence and hope. But another theme
directed me here this time. I do not need to speak of
iJie South. She has, perhaps, acquired the gift of speak-
ing for herself. I come because I want to speak of our
j>resent and prospective relations with our neighbors to
tlie south. I deemed it a public duty, as well as a
I>€rsonal pleasure, to be here to express for myself and
for the Government I represent the welcome we all feel
t:o those who represent the Latin American States.

The future, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be very
^iifferent for this hemisphere from the past. These

80 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

States lying to the south of us, which have always been
our neighbors, will now be drawn closer to us by in-
numerable ties, and, I hope, chief of all, by the tie of a
common understanding of each other. Interest does
not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them.
But sympathy and understanding does unite them, and
I believe that by the new route that is just about to be
opened, while we physically cut two continents asunder,
we spiritually imite them. It is a spiritual imion which
we seek.

I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imagina-
tions have been filled with the significance of the tides
of commerce. Tour governor alluded in very fit and
striking terms to the voyage of Columbus, but Columbus
took his voyage under compulsion of circumstances.
Constantinople had been captured by the Turks and all
the routes of trade with the East had been suddenly
closed. If there was not a way across the Atlantic
to open those routes again, they were closed forever,
and Colmnbus set out not to discover America, for he
did not know that it existed, but to discover the eastern
shores of Asia. He set sail for Cathay and stumbled
upon America. With that change in the outlook of the
world, what happened? England, that had been at the
back of Europe with an unknown sea behind her, found
that all things had turned as if upon a pivot and she
was at the front of Europe ; and since then all the tides
of energy and enterprise that have issued out of Europe
have seemed to be turned westward across the Atlantic.
But you will notice that they have turned westward
chiefly north of the Equator and that it is the northern

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 21

half of the globe that has seemed to be filled with the
media of intercourse and of sympathy and of common
miderstanding.

Do you not see now what is about to happen 1 These
great tides which have been running along parallels of
latitude will now swing southward athwart parallels
of latitude, and that opening gate at the Isthmus of
Panama will open the world to a conmierce that she has
not known before, a conmierce of intelligence, of thought
and sympathy between North and South, The Latin
American States, which, to their disadvantage, have been
off the main lines, will now be on the main lines. I
feel that these gentlemen honoring us with their pres-
ence to-day will presently find that some part, at any
rate, of the center of gravity of the world has shifted.
Do you realize that New York, for example, will be
nearer the western coast of South America than she is
now to the eastern coast of South America? Do you
realize that a line drawn northward parallel with the
greater part of the western coast of South America will
run only about 150 miles west of New York 1 The great
bulk of South America, if you will look at your globes
(not at yoiur Mercator^s projection), lies eastward of
the continent of North America. You will realize that
when you realize that the canal will run southeast, not
southwest, and that when you get into the Pacific you
will be farther east than you were when you left the
Gulf of Mexico. These things are significant, there-
fore, of this, that we are closing one chapter in the
history of the world and are opening another, of great,
unimaginable significance.

28 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

There is one peculiarity about the history of the
Latin American States which I am sure they are keenly
aware of. You hear of ** concessions'' to foreign capi-
talists in Latin America. You do not hear of conces-
sions to foreign capitalists in the United States. They
are not granted concessions. They are invited to make
investments. The work is ours, though they are wel-
come to invest in it. We do not ask them to supply the
capital and do the work. It is an invitation, not a
privilege; and States that are obliged, because their
territory does not lie within the main field of modem
enterprise and action, to grant concessions are in this
condition, that foreign interests are apt to dominate
their domestic affairs, a condition of affairs always dan-
gerous and apt to become intolerable. What these
States are going to see, therefore, is an emancipation
from the subordination, which has been inevitable, to
foreign enterprise and an assertion of the splendid
character which, in spite of these difficulties, they have
again and again been able to demonstrate. The dig-
nity, the courage, the self-possession, the self-respect
of the Latin American States, their achievements in
the face of all these adverse circumstances, deserve
nothing but the admiration and applause of the world.
They have had harder bargains driven with them in the
matter of loans than any other peoples in the world.
Interest has been exacted of them that was not exacted
of anybody else, because the risk was said to be greater ;
and then securities were taken that destroyed the risk —
an admirable arrangement for those who were forcing
the terms 1 I rejoice in nothing so much as in the pros-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 28

pect that they will now be emancipated from these
conditions, and we ought to be the first to take part in
assisting in that emancipation. I think some of these
gentlemen have already had occasion to bear witness
that the Department of State in recent months has tried
to serve them in that wise. In the future they will
draw closer and closer to us because of circiunstances
of which I wish to speak with moderation and, I hope,
without indiscretion.

We must prove ourselves their friends and cham-
pions upon terms of equality and honor. You cannot
be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of
equality. You cannot be friends at all except upon the
terms of honor. We must show ourselves friends by
comprehending their interest whether it squares with
our own interest or not. It is a very perilous thing
to determine the foreign policy of a nation in the terms
of material interest. It not only is unfair to those with
whom you are dealing, but it is degrading as regards
your own actions.

Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow
all the fruits of friendship; and there is a reason and a
compidsion lying behind all this which is dearer than
anything else to the thoughtful men of America. I
mean the development of constitutional liberty in the
world. Human rights, national integrity, and oppor-
tunity as against material interests — ^that, ladies and
gentlemen, is the issue which we now have to face. I
want to take this occasion to say that the United States
will never again seek one additional foot of territory by
conquest. She will devote herself to showing that she

24 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

knows how to make honorable and fruitful use of the
territory she has, and she must regard it as one of the
duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are
material interests made superior to human liberty and
national opportunity. I say this, not with a single
thought that anyone will gainsay it, but merely to fix
in oiur consciousness what our real relationship with the
rest of America is. It is the relationship of a family
of mankind devoted to the development of true con-
stitutional liberty. We know that that is the soil out
of which the best enterprise springs. We know that
this is a cause which we are making in conmion with
oiur neighbors, because we have had to make it for
ourselves.

Reference has been made here to-day to some of
the national problems which confront us as a nation.
What is at the heart of all our national problems? it
is that we have seen the hand of material interest some-
times about to close upon our dearest rights and posses-
sions. We have seen material interests threaten con-
stitutional freedom in the United States. Therefore we
will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest
of America who have to contend with such powers, not
only within their borders but from outside their borders
also.

I know what the response of the thought and heart
of America will be to the program I have outlined,
because America was created to realize a program like
that. This is not America because it is rich. This is
not America because it has set up for a great popula*
tion great opportunities of material prosperity. Amer-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS «6

ica is a name which sounds in the ears of men every-
where as a synonym with individual opportunity
because a synonym of individual liberty. I would
rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a
rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.
But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because
the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man
free to do his best and be his best, and that means the
release of all the splendid energies of a great people
who think for themselves. A nation of employees
cannot be free any more than a nation of employers
can be.

In emphasizing the points which must unite us in
sympathy and in spiritual interest with the Latin Amer-
ican peoples we are only emphasizing the points of our
own life, and we should prove ourselves untrue to our
own traditions if we proved ourselves untrue friends
to them. Do not think, therefore, gentlemen, that the
questions of the day are mere questions of policy and
diplomacy. They are shot through with the principles
of life. We dare not turn from the principle that
morality and not expediency is the thing that must
guide us and that we will never condone iniquity be-
cause it is most convenient to do so. It seems to me
that this is a day of infinite hope, of confidence in a
future greater than the past has been, for I am fain to
believe that in spite of all the things that we wish to
correct the nineteenth century that now lies behind us
has brought us a long stage toward the time when,
slowly ascending the tedious climb that leads to the
final uplands, we shall get our ultimate view of the

26 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

duties of mankind. We have breasted a considerable
part of that dimb and shall presently — ^it may be in a
generation or two — come out upon those great heights
where there shines unobstructed the light of the justice
of God.

FIRST ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A

JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES

OF CONGRESS, DECEMBER 2, 1913^

Mb. Speaker, Mb. Pbesident, Gentlemen of the
oongbess:
In pursuance of my constitutional duty to **give to
the Congress information of the state of the Union,'*
I take the liberty of addressing you on several matters
which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to engage
the attention of your honorable bodies, as of all who
study the welfare and progress of the Nation.

I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart
in some degree from the usual custom of setting before
you in formal review the many matters which have
engaged the attention and called for the action of the
several departments of the Government or which look
to them for early treatment in the future, because the
list is long, very long, and would suJBEer in the abbrevi-
ation to which I should have to subject it. I shall sub-
mit to you the reports of the heads of the several
departments, in which these subjects are set forth in
careful detail, and beg that they may receive the
':houghtful attention of your committees and of all
\Iembers of the Congress who may have the leisure to
tudy them. Their obvious importance, as constituting
le very substance of the business of the Government,
akes conmient and emphasis on my part unnecessary.

* Only that part of the address is given which concerns international rela-

28 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with
all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply
about us of a growing cordiality and sense of com-
munity of interest among the nations, foreshadowing
an age of settled peace and good will. More and more
readily each decade do the nations manifest their will-
ingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty to the
processes of peace, the processes of frankness and fair
concession. So far the United States has stood at the
front of such negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope
and confidently believe, give fresh proof of her sincere
adherence to the cause of international friendship by
ratifying the several treaties of arbitration awaiting
renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it has
been the privilege of the Department of State to gain
the assent, in principle, of no less than 31 nations, rep-
resenting four-fifths of the population of the world, to
the negotiation of treaties by which it shall be agreed
that whenever differences of interest or of policy arise
which cannot be resolved by the ordinary processes of
diplomacy they shall be publicly analyzed, discussed,
and reported upon by a tribunal chosen by the parties
before either nation determines its course of action.

There is only one possible standard by which to
determine controversies between the United States and
other nations, and that is compounded of these two
elements: Our own honor and our obligations to the
peace of the world. A test so compounded ought easily
to be made to govern both the establishment of new
treaty obligations and the interpretation of those
already assumed.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 29

There is but one doud upon our horizon. That has
shown itself to the south of us, and hangs over Mexico.
There can be no certain prospect of peace in America
until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped author-
ity in Mexico; until it is understood on all hands,
indeed, that such pretended governments will not be
countenanced or dealt with by the Government of the
United States. We are the friends of constitutional
government in America; we are more than its friends,
we are its champions ; because in no other way can our
neighbors, to whom we would wish in every way to
make proof of oiur friendship, work out their own
development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no Gov-
ernment. The attempt to maintain one at the City of
Mexico has broken down, and a mere military des-
potism has been set up which has hardly more than
the semblance of national authority. It originated in
the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief
attempt to play the part of constitutional President,
has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right
and declared himself dictator. As a consequence, a
condition of affairs now exists in Mexico which has
noiade it doubtful whether even the most elementary
and fundamental rights either of her own people or
of the citizens of other countries resident within her
territory can long be successfully safeguarded, and
which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the inter-
ests of peace, order, and tolerable life in the lands
immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper
had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the con-
stitution of the Republic and the rights of its people,

80 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

he would have set up nothing but a precarious and
hateful power, which could have lasted but a little
while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the
country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But
he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and
the moral support even of those who were at one time
willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been
completely isolated. By a little every day his power
and prestige are crumbling and the collapse is not far
away. We shall not, I believe, be obliged to alter our
policy of watchful waiting. And then, when the end
comes, we shall hope to see constitutional order restored
in distressed Mexico by the concert and energy of such
of her leaders as prefer the liberty of their people to
their own ambitions. . . .

ADDRESS URGING REPEAL OP PANAMA

TOLLS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION

OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS,

MARCH 5, 1014

On August 24, 1012, a bill was approved by President TM, entitled, "An
Act to provide for the openings maintenance^ protection, and operation of the
Panama Canal and the sanitation and government of the Canal Zone." This
bill contained a provision that American ships engaged in the coastwise trade
should be exempt from the payment of tolls. Qreat Britain claimed that the ex-
emption of American coast-wise shipping from the payment of tolls was a viola-
tion of the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty between Great Britain and the
United States signed November 18, 1901, and proclaimed February 18, 1902.
Largely through the energy of Senator Boot, a sentiment was created in favor
of the repeal of this section of the Act, which gained irresistible momentum by
President Wilson's advocacsy of this measure. A bill to this effect was passed
by both Houses and approved by him June 16, 1914. In the interval, on March
6, 1914, he appeared in person before the Congress and delivered the following
address.

Gentlemen of the Gongkess:

I have come to you upon an errand which can be
very briefly performed, but I beg that you will not
measure its importance by the number of sentences in
which I state it. No communication I have addressed
to the Congress carried with it graver or more far-
reaching implications as to the interest of the country,
and I come now to speak upon a matter with regard
to which I am charged in a peculiar degree, by the
Constitution itself, with personal responsibility.

I have come to ask you for the repeal of that pro-
vision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912,
which exempts vessels engaged in the coastwise trade
of the United States from payment of tolls, and to
urge upon you the justice, the wisdom, and the large
policy of such a repeal with the utmost earnestness of
which I am capable.

82 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POLICY

In my own judgment, very fully considered and
maturely formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken
economic policy from every point of view, and is, more-
over, in plain contravention of the treaty with Great
Britain concerning the canal concluded on November
18, 1901, But I have not come to urge upon you my
personal views. I have come to state to you a fact
and a situation. Whatever may be our own differ-
ences of opinion concerning this much debated measure,
its meaning is not debated outside the United States.
Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given
but one interpretation, and that interpretation pre-
cludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We
consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if
we did not originate it; and we are too big, too power-
ful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a
too strained or refined reading the words of our own
promises just because we have power enough to give
us leave to read them as we please. The large thing
to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a volun-
tary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned
and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action
without raising the question whether we were right or
wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for
generosity and for the redemption of every obligation
without quibble or hesitation.

I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy
of the administration. I shall not know how to deal
with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer
consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging
measure.

ADDRESS ON MEXICAN AFFAIRS DELIV-
ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO
HOUSES OF CONGRESS, APRIL 20, 1914 '

Gentlemen of the Gonqbess :

It is my duty to call your attention to a situation
which has arisen in our dealings with General Victoriano
Huerta at Mexico City which calls for action, and to
ask your advice and co-operation in acting upon it.
On the 9th of April a paymaster of the U. S. S, Dol-
phin landed at the Iturbide Bridge landing at Tampico
with a whaleboat and boat's crew to take off certain
supplies needed by his ship, and while engaged in
loading the boat was arrested by an of&cer and squad
of men of the army of General Huerta. Neither the
paymaster nor anyone of the boat's crew was armed.
Two of the men were in the boat when the arrest took
place and were obliged to leave it and submit to be
taken into custody, notwithstanding the fact that the
boat carried, both at her bow and at her stem, the flag
of the United States. The ofl&cer who made the arrest
was proceeding up one of the streets of the town with
his prisoners when met by an ofl&cer of higher authority,
who ordered him to return to the landing and await
orders; and within an hour and a half from the time
of the arrest orders were received from the commander

* For an elaborate and 83rmpathetic statement of President Wilson's Mex-
ican policy see an interview with the Honorable Franklin R. Lane, Secretary
of the Interior, contained in the Appendix to this volume, pp. 392-406.

84 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of the Huertista forces at Tampico for the release of
the paymaster and his men. The release was followed
by apologies from the commander and later by an
expression of regret by General Huerta himself. Gen-
eral Huerta urged that martial law obtained at the
time at Tampico; that orders had been issued that no
one should be allowed to land at the Iturbide Bridge;
and that our sailors had no right to land there. Our
naval commanders at the port had not been notified
of any such prohibition; and, even if they had been,
the only justifiable course open to the local authorities
would have been to request the paymaster and his crew
to withdraw and to lodge a protest with the command-
ing officer of the fieet. Admiral Mayo regarded the
arrest as so serious an affront that he was not satis-
fied with the apologies offered, but demanded that the
fiag of the United States be saluted with special cere-
mony by the military commander of the port.

The incident cannot be regarded as a trivial one,
especially as two of the men arrested were taken from
the boat itself — ^that is to say, from the territory of the
United States — ^but had it stood by itself it might have
been attributed to the ignorance or arrogance of a
single officer. Unfortunately, it was not an isolated
case. A series of incidents have recently occurred
which cannot but create the impression that the repre-
sentatives of General Huerta were willing to go out
of their way to show disregard for the dignity and
rights of this Government and felt perfectly safe in
doing what they pleased, making free to show in many
ways their irritation and contempt. A few days after

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 85

the incident at Tampico an orderly from the U. S. S.
Minnesota was arrested at Vera Cruz while ashore in
uniform to obtain the ship's mail, and was for a time
thrown into jail. An of&cial dispatch from this Gov-
ernment to its embassy at Mexico City was withheld
by the authorities of the telegraphic service until per-
emptorily demanded by our charg6 d'affaires in person.
So far as I can learn, such wrongs and annoyances have
been suffered to occur only against representatives of
the United States. I have heard of no complaints from
other Governments of similar treatment. Subsequent
explanations and formal apologies did not and could
not alter the popular impression, which it is possible
it had been the object of the Huertista authorities to
create, that the Government of the United States was
being singled out, and might be singled out with im-
pimity, for slights and affronts in retaliation for its
refusal to recognize the pretensions of General Huerta
to be regarded as the constitutional provisional Presi-
dent of the Republic of Mexico.

The manifest danger of such a situation was that
such offenses might grow from bad to worse imtil some-
thing happened of so gross and intolerable a sort as to
lead directly and inevitably to armed conflict. It was
necessary that the apologies of General Huerta and
his representatives should go much further, that they
should be such as to attract the attention of the whole
population to their significance, and such as to impress
upon General Huerta himself the necessity of seeing
to it that no further occasion for explanations and pro-
fessed regrets should arise. I, therefore, felt it my duty

S6 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

to sustain Admiral Mayo in the whole of his demand
and to insist that the flag of the United States should
be saluted in such a way as to indicate a new spirit
and attitude on the part of the Huertistas.

Such a salute General Huerta has refused, and I
have come to ask your approval and support in the
course I now purpose to pursue.

This Government can, I earnestly hope, in no cir-
cumstances be forced into war with the people of
Mexico. Mexico is torn by civil strife. If we are to
accept the tests of its own constitution, it has no gov-
ernment. General Huerta has set his power up in the
City of Mexico, such as it is, without right and by
methods for which there can be no justification. Only
part of the coimtry is imder his control. If armed
conflict should unhappily come as a result of his atti-
tude of personal resentment toward this Government,
we should be flghting only General Huerta and those
who adhere to him and give him their support, and our
object would be only to restore to the people of the
distracted Republic the opportunity to set up again
their own laws and their own government.

But I earnestly hope that war is not now in ques-
tion. I believe that I speak for the American people
when I say that we do not desire to control in any
degree the affairs of our sister Eepublic. Our feeling
for the people of Mexico is one of deep and genuine
friendship, and everything that we have so far done
or refrained from doing has proceeded from our desire
to help them, not to hinder or embarrass them. We
would not wish even to exercise the good of&ces of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 87

friendship without their welcome and consent. The
people of Mexico are entitled to settle their own do-
mestic affairs in their own way, and we sincerely desire
to respect their right. The present situation need have
none of the grave implications of interference if we
deal with it promptly, firmly, and wisely.

No doubt I could do what is necessary in the cir-
cumstances to enforce respect for our Government
without recourse to the Congress, and yet not exceed
my constitutional powAis as President; but I do not
wish to act in a matter possibly of so grave consequence
except in dose conference and co-operation with both
the Senate and House. I, therefore, come to ask your
approval that I should use the armed forces of the
United States in such ways and to such an extent as
may be necessary to obtain from General Huerta and
his adherents the fullest recognition of the rights and
dignity of the United States, even amidst the distress-
ing conditions now unhappily obtaining in Mexico.

There can in what we do be no thought of aggres-
sion or of selfish aggrandizement. We seek to main-
tain the dignity and authority of the United States
only because we wish always to keep our great infiu-
ence unimpaired for the uses of liberty, both in the
United States and wherever else it may be employed
for the benefit of mankind.

A WAR OF SERVICE

ADDRESS IN MEMORY OF THE AMERICANS

KILLED AT VERA CRUZ, DELIVERED AT

THE BROOKLYN NAVY YARD,

MAY 11, 1914

In order to prevent the delivery to General Huerta's (Government of a cargo
of supplies and ammunition, brought from Europe by the German steamer
Yprwga, President Wilson, on April 21, 1914, ordered a detachment of American
marines on board the U.S.S. Prairie and the U.S.8. Florida to land at Vera
Cruz and to seize the Custom House in that city. This they did at the loss of
nineteen killed and seventy wounded. The bodies of the marines were brought
to the United States for burial, and at their memorial service President Wilaon
delivered the following address.

Mr. Secketary:

I know that the feelings which characterize all who
stand about me and the whole Nation at this hour are
not feelings which can be suitably expressed in terms of
attempted oratory or eloquence. They are things too
deep for ordinary speech. For my own part, I have a
singular mixture of feelings. The feeling that is upper-
most is one of prof oimd grief that these lads should have
had to go to their death; and yet there is mixed with
that grief a profound pride that they should have gone
as they did, and, if I may say it out of my heart, a toudi
of envy of those who were permitted so quietly, so nobly,
to do their duty. Have you thought of it, men? Here
is the roster of the Navy — ^the list of the men, officers and
enlisted men and marines — and suddenly there swim
nineteen stars out of the list — ^men who have suddenly
been lifted into a firmament of memory where we shall

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 89

always see their names shine, not because they called
upon us to admire them, but because they served us,
without asking any questions and in the performance of
a duty which is laid upon us as weU as upon them.

Duty is not an imcommon thing, gentlemen. Men are
performing it in the ordinary walks of life all aroimd us
all the time, and they are making great sacrij&ces to per-
form it. What gives men like these peculiar distinction
is not merely that they did their duty, but that their
duty had nothing to do with them or their own personal
and peculiar interests. They did not give their lives for
themselves. They gave their lives for us, because we
called upon them as a Nation to perform an imexpected
duty. That is the way in which men grow distinguished,
and that is the only way, by serving somebody else than
themselves. And what greater thing could you serve
than a Nation such as this we love and are proud of?
Are you sorry for these lads? Are you sorry for the
way they will be remembered? Does it not quicken your
pulses to think of the list of them? I hope to God none
of you may join the list, but if you do you will join an
immortal company.

So, while we are prof oimdly sorrowful, and while
there goes out of our hearts a very deep and affectionate
sympathy for the friends and relatives of these lads who
for the rest of their lives shall mourn them, though with
a touch of pride, we know why we do not go away from
this occasion cast down, but with our heads lifted and
our eyes on the future of this coimtry, with absolute
confidence of how it will be worked out. Not only upon
the mere vague future of this coimtry, but upon the

40 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

immediate future. We have gone down to Mexico to
serve mankind if we can find out the way. We do not
want to fight the Mexicans. We want to serve the
Mexicans if we can, because we know how we would
like to be free, and how we would like to be served if
there were friends standing by in such case ready to
serve us. A war of aggression is not a war in which it
is a proud thing to die, but a war of service is a thing
in which it is a proud thing to die.

Notice how truly these men were of our blood. I
mean of our American blood, which is not drawn from
any one country, which is not drawn from any one
stock, which is not drawn from any one language of
the modem world; but free men everywhere have sent
their sons and their brothers and their daughters to
this country in order to make that great compounded
Nation which consists of all the sturdy elements and of
all the best elements of the whole globe. I listened
again to this list of the dead with a profound interest
because of the mixture of the names, for the names
bear the marks of the several national stocks from
which these men came. But they are not Irishmen or
Germans or Frenchmen or Hebrews or Italians any
more. They were not when they went to Vera Cruz;
they were Americans, every one of them, and with no
difference in their Americanism because of the stock
from which they came. They were in a peculiar sense
of our blood, and they proved it by showing that they
were of our spirit — ^that no matter what their deriva-
tion, no matter where their people came from, they
thought and wished and did the things that were Ameri-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 41

can; and the flag under which they served was a flag
in which all the blood of mankind is united to make a
free Nation,

War, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic represen-
tation, a sort of dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms
of duty. I never went into battle; I never was under
fire; but I fancy that there are some things just as
hard to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just
as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you
as when they are shooting at you. When they shoot at
you, they can only take your natural life; when they
sneer at you, they can wound your living heart, and
men who are brave enough, steadfast enough, steady
in their principles enough, to go about their duty with
regard to their fellow-men, no matter whether there
are hisses or cheers, men who can do what Rudyard
Kipling in one of his poems wrote, "Meet with tri-
innph and disaster and treat those two impostors just
the same,'' are men for a nation to be proud of. Mor-
ally speaking, disaster and triumph are impostors. The
cheers of the moment are not what a man ought to
think about, but the verdict of his conscience and of the
consciences of mankind.

When I look at you, I feel as if I also and we aU
were enlisted men. Not enlisted in your particular
brancii of the service, but enlisted to serve the country,
no matter what may come, even though we may sacri-
fice our lives in the arduous endeavor. We are expected
to put the utmost energy of every power that we have
into the service of our fellow-men, never sparing our-
selves, not condescending to think of what is going to

4S PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the
utter length of complete self-sacrifice.

As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these
spirits that have gone from us, I know that the road ii^
clearer for the future. These boys have shown us the
way, and it is easier to walk on it because they have
gone before and shown us how. May God grant to all
of us that vision of patriotic service which here in
solemnity and grief and pride is borne in upon our
hearts and consciences!

44 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

fought for. No one can turn to the career of Com-
modore Barry without feeling a touch of the enthusi-
asm with which he devoted an originating mind to the
great cause which he intended to serve, and it behooves
us, living in this age when no man can question the
power of the Nation, when no man would dare to doubt
its right and its determination to act for itself, to ask
what it was that filled the hearts of these men when
they set the Nation up.

For patriotism, ladies and gentlemen, is in my mind
not merely a sentiment. There is a certain efferves-
cence, I suppose, which ought to be permitted to those
who allow their hearts to speak in the celebration of the
glory and majesty of their coimtry, but the country
can have no glory and no majesty unless there be a
deep principle and conviction back of the enthusiasm.
Patriotism is a principle, not a mere sentiment. No
man can be a true patriot who does not feel himself
shot through and through with a deep ardor for what
his country stands for, what its existence means, what
its purpose is declared to be in its history and in its
policy. I recall those solemn lines of the poet Tenny-
son in which he tries to give voice to his conception,
of what it is that stirs within a nation: **Some sense of
duty, something of a faith, some reverence for the laws
ourselves have made, some patient force to change
them when we will, some civic manhood firm against
the crowd;'' steadfastness, clearness of purpose, cour-
age, persistency, and that uprightness which comes
from the dear thinking of men who wish to serve not
themselves but their fellow-men.

BIESSA6ES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 45

What does the United States stand for, then, that
our hearts should be stirred by the memory of the men
who set her Constitution up? John Barry fought, like
every other man in the Eevolution, in order that Amer-
ica might be free to make her own life without inter-
ruption or disturbance from any other quarter. Tou
can sum the whole thing up in that, that America had
a right to her own self-determined life; and what are
our corollaries from that ? Tou do not have to go back
jto stir your thoughts again with the issues of the Revo-
lution. Some of the issues of the Revolution were not
the cause of it, but merely the occasion for it. There
are just as vital things stirring now that concern the
existence of the Nation as were stirring then, and every
man who worthily stands in this presence should exam-
ine himself and see whether he has the full conception
of what it means that America should live her own life.
Washington saw it when he wrote his farewell address.
It was not merely because of passing and transient cir-
cumstances that Washington said that we must keep
free from entangling alliances. It was because he saw
that no country had yet set its face in the same direc-
tion in which America had set her face. We cannot
form alliances with those who are not going our way;
and in our might and majesty and in the confidence and
definiteness of our own purpose we need not and we
should not form alliances with any nation in the world.
Those who are right, those who study their consciences
in determining their policies, those who hold their honor
higher than their advantage, do not need alliances.
You need alliances when you are not strong, and you

46 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

are weak only when you are not true to yourself. You
are weak only when you are in the wrong ; you are weak
only when you are afraid to do the right ; you are weak
only when you doubt your cause and the majesty of a
nation's might asserted.

There is another corollary. John Barry was an
Irishman, but his heart crossed the Atlantic with him.
He did not leave it in Ireland. And the test of all
of us — for all of us had our origins on the other side
of the sea — ^is whether we will assist in enabling Amer-
ica to live her separate and independent life, retaining
our ancient affections, indeed, but determining every-
thing that we do by the interests that exist on this side
of the sea. Some Americans need hyphens in their
names, because only part of them has come over; but
when the whole man has come over, heart and thought
and all, the hjrphen drops of its own weight out of his
name. This man was not an Irish-American; he was
an Irishman who became an American. I venture to
say if he voted he voted with regard to the questions
as they looked on this side of the water and not as
they affected the other side; and that is my infallible
test of a genuine American, that when he votes or when
he acts or when he fights his heart and his thought are
centered nowhere but in the emotions and the purposes
and the policies of the United States.

This man illustrates for me all the splendid strength
which we brought into this country by the magnet of
freedom. Men have been drawn to this coimtry by
the same thing that has made us love this country — ^by
the opportunity to live their own lives and to think

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 47

their own thoughts and to let their whole natures ex-
pand with the expansion of a free and mighty Nation.
We have brought out of the stocks of aU the world all
the best impulses and have appropriated them and
Americanized them and translated them into the glory
and majesty of a great country.

So, ladies and gentlemen, when we go out from this
presence we ought to take this idea with us that we,
too, are devoted to the purpose of enabling America to
live her own life, to be the justest, the most progressive,
the most honorable, the most enlightened Nation in the
world. Any man that touches our honor is our enemy.
Any man who stands in the way of the kind of prog-
ress which makes for human freedom cannot call him-
self our friend. Any man who does not feel behind
him the whole push and rush and compulsion that filled
men's hearts in the time of the Ee volution is no Ameri-
can. No man who thinks first of himself and after-
wards of his country can call himself an American.
America must be enriched by us. We must not live
upon her; she must live by means of us.

I, for one, come to this shrine to renew the impulses
of American democracy. I would be ashamed of myself
if I went away from this place without realizing again
that every bit of selfishness must be purged from our
policy, that every bit of self-seeking must be purged
from our individual consciences, and that we must be
great, if we would be great at all, in the light and
illmnination of the example of men who gave every-
thing that they were and everything that they had to
.the glory and honor of America.

ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF

THE UNITED STATES NAVAL

ACADEMY, JUNE 5, 1914

The United States Naval Academy at Annapolifl renders to the Navy the
services which the Military Academy established at West Point renders the
Army of the United States. The midshipmen, as the students of this institution
are called, are appointed, seventeen by the President, twenty-five by the Secre-
tary of the Navy and three by each Senator and Member of Congress. Upon
mental and physical examination they are admitted and pursue a course of
four years of technical study at the expense of the United States. The total
number allowed by the law is 3,128; the actual number of midshipmen in
regular course in the fall of 1917 is 1,442.

It is interesting to recall that the Naval Academy was established on
October 10, 1845, without act of Congress, by the distinguished American his*
torian, George Bancroft, then Secretary of the Navy in President Polk's adminia-
tration, by the simple device of removing the instructors from the men-of-war,
who accompanied and instructed the midshipmen, and locating instructors and
midshipmen at Annapolis in Fort Severn, assigned to the enterprising Secretary
of the Navy by the Uien Secretary of War.

Mr. Superintendent, Young Gentlemen, Ladies and
Gentlemen :

During the greater part of my life I have been
associated with young men, and on occasions it seems
to me without number have faced bodies of youngsters
going out to take part in the activities of the world,
but I have a consciousness of a different significance
in this occasion from that which I have felt on other
similar occasions. When I have faced the graduating
classes at universities I have felt that I was facing a
great conjecture. They were going out into aU sorts
of pursuits and with every degree of preparation for
the particular thing they were expecting to do; some

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 49

without any preparation at all, for they did not know
what they expected to do. But in facing you I am
facing men who are trained for a special thing. You
know what you are going to do, and you are under the
eye of the whole Nation in doing it. For you, gentle-
men, are to be part of the power of the Government of
the United States. There is a very deep and solemn
significance in that fact, and I am sure that every one
of you feels it. The moral is perfectly obvious. Be
ready and fit for anything that you have to do. And
keep ready and fit. Do not grow slack. Do not sup-
pose that your education is over because you have re-
ceived your diplomas from the academy. Your educa-
tion has just begun. Moreover, you are to have a very
peculiar privilege which not many of your predecessors
have had. You are yourselves going to become teachers.
Tou are going to teach those 50,000 fellow countrymen
^f yours who are the enlisted men of the Navy. You
^re going to make them fitter to obey your orders and
*o serve the country. You are going to make them
^tter to see what the orders mean in their outlook upon
iife and upon the service ; and that is a great privilege,
^ftx* out of you are going the energy and intelligence
*^^^^ch are going to quicken the whole body of the
^^^^Mated States Navy.

J congratulate you upon that prospect, but I want to
^fi*^ you not to get the professional point of view. I
^^^'^old ask it of you if you were lawyers; I would ask
it ^>i you if you were merchants ; I would ask it of you
^T*-^^tever you expected to be. Do not get the profes-
sorial point of view. There is nothing narrower or

50 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

more unserviceable than the professional point of view,
to have the attitude toward life that it centers in your
profession. It does not. Tour profession is only one
of the many activities which are meant to keep the
world straight, and to keep the energy in its blood and
in its muscle. We are all of us in this world, as I under-
stand it, to set forward the affairs of the whole world,
though we play a special part in that great function.
The Navy goes all over the world, and I think it is to
be congratulated upon having that sort of illustration
of what the world is and what it contains; and inas-
much as you are going all over the world you ought to
be the better able to see the relation that your country
bears to the rest of the world.

It ought to be one of your thoughts all the time that
you are sample Americans — ^not merely sample Navy
men, not merely sample soldiers, but sample Ameri-
cans — ^and that you have the point of view of America
with regard to her Navy and her Army; that she is
using them as the instnunents of civilization, not as
the instnunents of aggression. The idea of America
is to serve humanity, and every time you let the Stars
and Stripes free to the wind you ought to realize that
that is in itself a message that you are on an errand
which other navies have sometimes forgotten; not an
errand of conquest, but an errand of service. I always
have the same thought when I look at the flag of the
United States, for I know something of the history of
the struggle of mankind for liberty. When I look at
that flag it seems to me as if the white stripes were
strips of parchment upon which are written the rights

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 61

of man, and the red stripes the streams of blood by
which those rights have been made good. Then in the
little blue firmament in the corner have swung out the
stars of the States of the American Union. So it is,
as it were, a sort of floating charter that has come down
to us from Runnymede, when men said, **We will not
have masters; we will be a people, and we will seek
our own liberty.*'

You are not serving a goyemment, gentlemen; you

are serving a people. For we who for the time being

constitute the Government are merely instruments for

a little while in the hands of a great Nation which

chooses whom it will to carry out its decrees and who

invariably rejects the man who forgets the ideals which

it intended him to serve. So that I hope that wherever

you go you will have a generous, comprehending love

of the people you come into contact with, and will come

back and tell us, if you can, what service the United

States can render to the remotest parts of the world;

tell us where you see men suffering; tell us where you

think advice will lift them up; tell us where you think

that the counsel of statesmen may better the fortunes

of unfortunate men ; always having it in mind that you

ax-€ champions of what is right and fair all 'round for

tlxc public welfare, no matter where you are, and

tti.s.t it is that you are ready to fight for and not

merely on the drop of a hat or upon some slight

PULmctilio, but that you are champions of your fel-

Jo^^v-men, particularly of that great body one hun-

dir^d million strong whom you represent in the United

Sti^tes.

62 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

What do you think is the most lasting impression
that those boys down at Vera Cruz are going to leave!
They have had to use some force — ^I pray God it may
not be necessary for them to use any more — ^but do
you think that the way they fought is going to be the
most lasting impression? Have men not fought ever
since the world began? Is there anything new in using
force? The new things in the world are the things
that are divorced from force. The things that show the
moral compulsions of the human conscience, those are
the things by which we have been building up civiliza-
tion, not by force. And the lasting impression that
those boys are going to leave is this, that they exercise
self-control; that they are ready and diligent to make
the place where they went fitter to live in than they
found it; that they regarded other people's rights; that
they did not strut and bluster, but went quietly, like
self-respecting gentlemen, about their legitimate work.
And the people of Vera Cruz, who feared the Ameri-
cans and despised the Americans, are going to get a
very different taste in their mouths about the whole
thing when the boys of the Navy and the Army come
away. Is that not something to be proud of, that you
know how to use force like men of conscience and like
gentlemen, serving your fellow-men and not trying to
overcome them? Like that gallant gentleman who has
so long borne the heats and perplexities and distresses
of the situation in Vera Cruz — Admiral Fletcher. I
mention him, because his service there has been longer
and so much of the early perplexities fell upon him.
I have been in almost daily commimication with Ad-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 68

miral Fletcher, and I have tested his temper. I have
tested his discretion. I know that he is a man with a
touch of statesmanship about him, and he has grown
bigger in my eye each day as I have read his dispatches,
for he has sought always to serve the thing he was
trying to do in the temper that we all recognize and
love to believe is typically American.

I challenge you youngsters to go out with these con-
ceptions, knowing that you are part of the Government
and force of the United States and that men will judge
us by you. I am not afraid of the verdict. I cannot
look in your faces and doubt what it will be, but I want
you to take these great engines of force out onto the
seas like adventurers enlisted for the elevation of the
spirit of the human race. For that is the only distinc-
tdoii that America has. Other nations have been strong,
other nations have piled wealth as high as the sky,
but they have come into disgrace because they used
tlieir force and their wealth for the oppression of man-
.kind and their own aggrandizement; and America will
xDiot bring glory to herself, but disgrace, by following
tLbe beaten paths of history. We must strike out upon
paths, and we must count upon you gentlemen to
the explorers who will carry this spirit and spread
tfaJs message all over the seas and in every port of the
d^vilized world.

You see, therefore, why I said that when I faced you
I :f elt there was a special significance. I am not present
OEi. an occasion when you are about to scatter on various
^Jcrrands. You are all going on the same errand, and
I Xike to feel bound with you in one common organiza-

64 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

tion for the glory of America. And her glory goes
deeper than all the tinsel, goes deeper than the sound
of guns and the clash of sabers; it goes down to the
very foundations of those things that have made the
spirit of men free and happy and content.

ADDRESS AT INDEPENDENCE HALL,
PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1914

Mb. Chairman and Fellow Citizens :

We are assembled to celebrate the one hundred and
thirty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the United
States. I suppose that we can more vividly realize the
circimistances of that birth standing on this historic spot
than it would be possible to realize them anywhere else.
The Declaration of Independence was written in Phila-
delphia; it was adopted in this historic building by
which we stand. I have just had the privilege of sit-
ting in the chair of the great man who presided over
the deliberations of those who gave the declaration to
the world. My hand rests at this moment upon the
table upon which the declaration was signed. We can
feel that we are almost in the visible and tangible pres-
ence of a great historic transaction.

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence
or attended with close comprehension to the real char-
acter of it when you have heard it read? If you have,
y^ou will know that it is not a Fourth of July oration.
ITie Declaration of Independence was a document pre-
liiminary to war. It was a vital piece of practical busi-
a^38s, not a piece of rhetoric ; and if you will pass beyond
ti=M.ose preliminary passages which we are accustomed to
q'^.sLote about the rights of men and read into the heart of
tkni.^ document you will see that it is very express and
d^^iailed, that it consists of a series of definite specifica-

66 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

tions concenung actual public business of the day. Not
the business of our day, for the matter with which it
deals is past, but the business of that first reyolution by
which the Nation was set up, the business of 1776. Its
general statements, its general declarations cannot mean
anything to us unless we append to it a similar specific
body of particulars as to what we consider the essential
business of our own day.

Liberty does not consist, my fellow citizens, in mere
general declarations of the rights of man. It consists
in the translation of those declarations into definite
action. Therefore, standing here where the declaration
was adopted, reading its business-like sentences, we
ought to ask ourselves what there is in it for us. There
is nothing in it for us unless we can translate it into the
terms of our own conditions and of our own lives.
We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill of
particulars. It contains a bill of particulars, but the
bill of particulars of 1776. K we would keep it alive,
we must fill it with a bill of particulars of the year
1914.

The task to which we have constantly to readdress
ourselves is the task of proving that we are worthy of
the men who drew this great declaration and know what
they would have done in our circumstances. Patriotism
consists in some very practical things — ^practical in that
they belong to the life of every day, that they wear no
extraordinary distinction about them, that they are con-
nected with commonplace duty. The way to be patriotic
in America is not only to love America, but to love the
duty that lies nearest to our hand and know that in

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 67

performing it we are serving our country. There are
some gentlemen in Washington, for example, at this very
moment who are showing themselves very patriotic in a
way which does not attract wide attention but seems to
belong to mere everyday obligations. The Members of
the House and Senate who stay in hot Washington to
maintain a quonun of the Houses and transact the all-
important business of the Nation are doing an act of
patriotism. I honor them for it, and I am glad to stay
there and stick by them until the work is done.

It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our
national life are and to face them with candor. I have
heard a great many facts stated about the present busi-
ness condition of this country, for example — a great
many allegations of fact, at any rate, but the allegations
do not tally with one another. And yet I know that
truth always matches with truth ; and when I find some
insisting that everything is going wrong and others
insisting that everything is going right, and when I
kxLOw from a wide observation of the general circum-
stances of the country taken as a whole that things are
g^oing extremely well, I wonder what those who are cry-
ixxg out that things are wrong are trying to do. Are
tiicy trying to serve the country, or are they trying to
8^:we something smaller than the coimtry? Are they
tir37mg to put hope into the hearts of the men who work
sjcjL^ toil every day, or are they trying to plant discour-
agement and despair in those hearts ? And why do they
ci^J^ that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set
it xight? K they love America and anything is wrong
aJXxongst us, it is their business to put their hand with

68 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

ours to the task of setting it right- When the facts are
known and acknowledged, the duty of all patriotic men
is to accept them in candor and to address themselves
hopefully and confidently to the common counsel which
is necessary to act upon them wisely and in uniyersal
concert.

I have had some experiences in the last 14 months
which have not been entirely reassuring. It was uni-
versally admitted, for example, my fellow citizens, that
the banking system of this country needed reorganiza-
tion. We set the best minds that we could find to the
task of discovering the best method of reorganization.
But we met with hardly anything but criticism from the
bankers of the country; we met with hardly anything
but resistance from the majority of those at least who
spoke at all concerning the matter. And yet so soon as
that act was passed there was a universal chorus of
applause, and the very men who had opposed the meas-
ure joined in that applause. If it was wrong the day
before it was passed, why was it right the day after it
was passed? Where had been the candor of criticism
not only, but the concert of counsel which makes legis-
lative action vigorous and safe and successful?

It is not patriotic to concert measures against one
another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one
another.

In one sense the Declaration of Independence has
lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a
declaration of national independence. Nobody outside
of America believed when it was uttered that we could
make good our independence; now nobody anywhere

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 09

would dare to doubt that we are independent and can
maintain our independence. As a declaration of inde-
pendence, therefore, it is a mere historic document. Our
independence is a fact so stupendous that it can be
measured only by the size and energy and variety and
wealth and power of one of the greatest nations in the
world. But it is one thing to be independent and it is
another thing to know what to do with your independ-
ence. It is one thing to come to your majority and
another thing to know what you are going to do with
your life and your energies ; and one of the most serious
questions for sober-minded men to address themselves
to in the United States is this: What are we going to
do with the influence and power of this great Nation?
Are we going to play the old role of using that power
for our aggrandizement and material benefit only ? You
know what that may mean. It may upon occasion mean
that we shall use it to make the peoples of other nations
suffer in the way in which we said it was intolerable to
Aiffer when we uttered our Declaration of Independence.
The Department of State at Washington is constantly
caJled upon to back up the commercial enterprises and
tb^^ industrial enterprises of the United States in foreign
co-imtries, and it at one time went so far in that direc-
^<:^n that all its diplomacy came to be designated as
oUar diplomacy.'' It was called upon to support
ry man who wanted to earn anything anywhere if he
an American. But there ought to be a limit to that,
ere is no man who is more interested than I am in
^^^nying the enterprise of American business men to
ry quarter of the globe. I was interested in it long

60 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

before I was suspected of being a politician. I hav^
been preaching it year after year as the great thing that
lay in the future for the United States, to show her wit
and skill and enterprise and influence in every country
in the world. But observe the limit to all that which is
laid upon us perhaps more than upon any other nation
in the world. We set this Nation up, at any rate we
professed to set it up, to vindicate the rights of men.
We did not name any differences between one race and
another. We did not set up any barriers against any
particular people. We opened our gates to aU the world
and said, **Let all men who wish to be free come to us
and they will be welcome.'* We said, **This independ-
ence of ours is not a selfish thing for our own exclusive
private use. It is for everybody to whom we can find
the means of extending it.*' We cannot with that oath,
taken in our youth, we cannot with that great ideal set
before us when we were a young people and numbered
only a scant 3,000,000, take upon ourselves, now that we
are 100,000,000 strong, any other conception of duty
than we then entertained. K American enterprise in
foreign coimtries, particularly in those foreign countries
which are not strong enough to resist us, takes the shape
of imposing upon and exploiting the mass of the people
of that country it ought to be checked and not encour-
aged. I am willing to get anything for an American
that money and enterprise can obtain except the sup-
pression of the rights of other men. I will not help any
man buy a power which he ought not to exercise over
his fellow beings.

You know, my fellow coimtrymen, what a big ques-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 61

tion there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent of the

Mexican people have never been allowed to have any

genuine participation in their own Government or to

exercise any substantial rights with regard to the very

land they live upon. All the rights that men most

desire have been exercised by the other 15 per cent.

Do you suppose that that circumstance is not sometimes

in my thought ? I know that the American people have

a heart that will beat just as strong for those millions

in Mexico as it will beat, or has beaten, for any other

millions elsewhere in the world, and that when once

they conceive what is at stake in Mexico they will know

what ought to be done in Mexico. I hear a great deal

said about the loss of property in Mexico and the loss

of the lives of foreigners, and I deplore these things

with all my heart. Undoubtedly, upon the conclusion

of the present disturbed conditions in Mexico those who

liave been unjustly deprived of their property or in

any wise unjustly put upon ought to be compensated.

J^en's individual rights have no doubt been invaded,

and the invasion of those rights has been attended by

2Kxany deplorable circumstances which ought some time,

ira the proper way, to be accounted for. But back of

it all is the struggle of a people to come into its own,

while we look upon the incidents in the foreground

us not forget the great tragic reality in the back-

ound which towers above the whole picture.

A patriotic American is a man who is not niggardly
selfish in the things that he enjoys that make for
w:^:Mian liberty and the rights of man. He wants to share
tlx^an vnith the whole world, and he is never so proud of

est PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the great flag under which he lives as when it comes to
mean to other people as well as to himself a symbol of
hope and liberty. I would be ashamed of this flag if it
ever did anything outside America that we would not
permit it to do inside of America.

The world is becoming more complicated every day,
my fellow citizens. No man ought to be foolish enough
to think that he understands it aU. And, therefore, I
am glad that there are some simple things in the world.
One of the simple things is principle. Honesty is a per-
fectly simple thing. It is hard for me to believe that
in most circumstances when a man has a choice of ways
he does not know which is the right way and which is
the wrong way. No man who has chosen the wrong
way ought even to come into Independence Square ; it is
holy ground which he ought not to tread upon. He
ought not to come where immortal voices have uttered
the great sentences of such a document as this Declara-
tion of Independence upon which rests the liberty of a
whole nation.

And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer
the honor of the country to its material interest. Would
you rather be deemed by all the nations of the world
incapable of keeping your treaty obligations in order
that you might have free tolls for American ships ? The
treaty under which we gave up that right may have been
a mistaken treaty, but there was no mistake about its
meaning.

When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep
it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation.
The most distinguished nation in the world is the nation

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 6S

that can and will keep its promises even to its own hurt.
And I want to say parenthetically that I do not think
anybody was hurt. I cannot be enthusiastic for subsi-
dies to a monopoly, but let those who are enthusiastic
for subsidies ask themselves whether they prefer subsi-
dies to unsullied honor.

The most patriotic man, ladies and gentlemen, is
sometimes the man who goes in the direction that he
thinks right even when he sees half the world against
him. It is the dictate of patriotism to sacrifice your-
self if you think that that is the path of honor and of
duty. Do not blame others if they do not agree with
you. Do not die with bitterness in your heart because
you did not convince the rest of the world, but die happy
because you believe that you tried to serve your country
by not selling your soul. Those were grim days, the days
of 1776. Those gentlemen did not attach their names
to the Declaration of Independence on this table expect-
ing a holiday on the next day, and that 4th of July was
not itself a holiday. They attached their signatures to
that significant document knowing that if they failed it
was certain that every one of them would hang for the
failure. They were committing treason in the interest
of the liberty of 3,000,000 people in America. All the
rest of the world was against them and smiled with
cynical incredulity at the audacious undertaking. Do
you think that if they could see this great Nation now
they would regret anything that they then did to draw
the gaze of a hostile world upon them ? Every idea must
be started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start
anything. Yet if it is in you, you must start it if you

64 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

have a man's blood in you and if you love the country
that you profess to be working for.

I am sometimes very much interested when I see
gentlemen supposing that popularity is the way to suc-
cess in America. The way to success in this great coun-
try, with its fair judgments, is to show that you are not
afraid of anybody except God and His final verdict. If
I did not believe that, I would not believe in democracy.
If I did not believe that, I would not believe that people
can govern themselves. If I did not believe that the
moral judgment would be the last judgment, the final
judgment, in the minds of men as well as the tribunal
of God, I could not believe in popular government. But
I do believe these things, and, therefore, I earnestly
believe in the democracy not only of America but of
every awakened people that wishes and intends to gov-
ern and control its own affairs.

It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that
may be called the original fountain of independence and
liberty in America and here drink draughts of patriotic
feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one's
veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days
are hot and the business presses intolerably and there
are so many things to do that it does not seem possible
to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is
always possible to lift one's thought above the task of the
moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of
which we are all parts, the great body of American feel-
ing and American principle. No man could do the work
that has to be done in Washington if he allowed him-
self to be separated from that body of principle. He

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 65

must make himself feel that he is a part of the people
of the United States, that he is trying to think not only
for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely.
He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid
of anything.

My dream is that as the years go on and the world
knows more and more of America it will also drink at
these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will
turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie
at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never
fear America imless it feels that it is engaged in some
enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of
humanity; and that America will come into the fuU
light of the day when all shall know that she puts
human rights above all other rights and that her flag
is the flag not only of America but of humanity.

What other great people has devoted itself to this
exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can
all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the
whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for
their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a
declaration of independence and of grievances for man-
kind, but I believe that if any such document is ever
drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American
Declaration of Independence, and that America has
lifted high the light which will shine unto all genera-
tions and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of jus-
tice and liberty and peace.

AMERICAN NEUTRALITY

AN APPEAL TO THE CITIZENS OP THE
REPUBLIC, REQUESTING THEIR AS-
SISTANCE IN MAINTAINING A STATE
OF NEUTRALITY DURING THE
PRESENT EUROPEAN WAR,
AUGUST 18, 1914

In the manual entitled Kriegahrauoh im Landkriege,^ issued in 1002 by the
Great Greneral Staff of the German Army, the nature of neutrality is thus
stated: '' It is here assumed that neutrality is not to be regarded as synonymous
with indifference and impartiality toward the belligerents and the continuance
of the war. As regards the expression of partisanship all that is required of
neutral States is the observance of international courtesy; so long as these are
observed, there is no occasion for interference." President Wilson's conception
of neutrality, as laid down in the following appeal, was something more than
impartiality based upon an observance of international courtesies. It was neu-
trality in thought, in word, in deed, which he besought his countrymen to observe.

My Fellow Coxtntrymen :

I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has
asked himself, during these last troubled weeks, what
influence the European war may exert upon the United
States, and I take the liberty of addressing a few words
to you in order to point out that it is entirely within
our own choice what its effects upon us will be and to
urge very earnestly upon you the sort of speech and con-
duct which will best safeguard the Nation against dis-
tress and disaster.

The effect of the war upon the United States will
depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every
man who really loves America will act and speak in the

* Translated by J. H. Morgan under the title The W(ur Book of the Germois
General Staff (New York, 1016).

68 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak
a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest,
most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which
may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately tak-
ing sides. The United States must be neutral in fact as
well as in name during these days that are to try men's
souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in
action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as
upon every transaction that might be construed as a
preference of one party to the struggle before another.

My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel
sure, the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful
American that this great country of ours, which is, of
course, the first in our thoughts and in our hearts, should
show herself in this time of peculiar trial a Nation fit
beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed
judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efl&ciency of
dispassionate action; a Nation that neither sits in judg-
ment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels
and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest
and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of
the world.

Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the re-
straints which will bring to our people the happiness
and the great and lasting influence for peace we covet
for them?

PUBLIC OPINION AND INTERNATIONAL

LAW

ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN BAR

ASSOCIATION, CONTINENTAL HALL,

WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 20, 1914 '

Mb. President, Gentlemen of the American Bar
Association:

I am very deeply gratified by the greeting that your
president has given me and by your response to it. My
only strength Hes in your confidence.

We stand now in a peculiar case. Our first thought,
I suppose, as lawyers, is of international law, of those
bonds of right and principle which draw the nations
together and hold the community of the world to some
standards of action. We know that we see in inter-
national law, as it were, the moral processes by which
law itself came into existence. I know that as a lawyer
I have myself at times felt that there was no real com-
parison between the law of a nation and the law of
nations, because the latter lacked the sanction that gave
the former strength and validity. And yet, if you look
into the matter more closely, you will find that the two
have the same foundations, and that those foundations
are more evident and conspicuous in our day than they
have ever been before.

* Only that part of the address is given which concerns public opinion and
international relations.

70 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

The opinion of the world is the mistress of the
world; and the processes of international law are the
slow processes by which opinion works its will. What
impresses me is the constant thought that that is the
tribunal at the bar of which we all sit. I would call
your attention, incidentally, to the circumstance that it
does not observe the ordinary rules of evidence; which
has sometimes suggested to me that the ordinary rules
of evidence had shown some signs of growing antique.
Everything, rumor included, is heard in this court, and
the standard of judgment is not so much the character
of the testimony as the character of the witness. The
motives are disclosed, the purposes are conjectured, and
that opinion is finally accepted which seems to be, not
the best founded in law, perhaps, but the best founded
in integrity of character and of morals. That is the
process which is slowly working its will upon the world ;
and what we should be watchful of is not so much
jealous interests as sound principles of action. The dis-
interested course is always the biggest course to pursue
not only, but it is in the long run the most profitable
course to pursue. If you can establish your character,
you can establish your credit. ...

SECOND ANNUAL ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS, DECEMBER 8, 1914 *

Gentlemen of the Oongbess :

The session upon which yon are now entering will be
the closing session of the Sixty-third Congress, a Con-
gress, I venture to say, which will long be remembered
for the great body of thoughtful and constructive work
which it has done, in loyal response to the thought and
needs of the country. I should like in this address to
review the notable record and try to make adequate
assessment of it; but no doubt we stand too near
the work that has been done and are ourselves
too much part of it to play the part of historians
toward it.

Our program of legislation with regard to the regu-
lation of business is now virtually complete. It has
been put forth, as we intended, as a whole, and leaves
no conjecture as to what is to follow. The road at last
lies dear and firm before business. It is a road which
it can travel without fear or embarrassment. It is the
road to ungrudged, unclouded success. In it every
honest man, every man who believes that the public
interest is part of his own interest, may walk with
perfect confidence.

Moreover, our thoughts are now more of the future
than of the past. While we have worked at our tasks

'Only that part of the address is given which concerns international
relations.

72 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of peace the circumstances of the whole age have been
altered by war. What we have done for our own land
and our own people we did with the best that was in
us, whether of character or of intelligence, with sober
enthusiasm and a confidence in the principles upon
which we were acting which sustained us at every step
of the difficult undertaking; but it is done. It has
passed from our hands. It is now an established part
of the legislation of the country. Its usefulness, its
effects will disclose themselves in experience. What
chiefly strikes us now, as we look about us during these
closing days of a year which will be forever memorable
in the history of the world, is that we face new tasks,
have been facing them these six months, must face them
in the months to come, — ^face them without partisan
feeling, like men who have forgotten everything but
a common duty and the fact that we are representatives
of a great people whose thought is not of us but of
what America owes to herself and to all mankind in
such circiunstances as these upon which we look amazed
and anxious.

War has interrupted the means of trade not only but
also the processes of production. In Europe it is de-
stroying men and resources wholesale and upon a scale
unprecedented and appalling. There is reason to fear
that the time is near, if it be not already at hand, when
several of the countries of Europe will find it difficult
to do for their people what they have hitherto been
always easily able to do, — ^many essential and funda-
mental things. At any rate, they will need our help
and our manifold services as they have never needed

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 73

them before; and we should be ready, more fit and
ready than we have ever been.

It is of equal consequence that the nations whom
Europe has usually supplied with innumerable articles
of manufacture and commerce of which they are in
constant need and without which their economic de-
velopment halts and stands still can now get only a
small part of what they formerly imported and eagerly
look to us to supply their all but empty markets. This
is particularly true of our own neighbors, the States,
great and small, of Central and South America. Their
lines of trade have hitherto run chiefly athwart the seas,
not to our ports but to the ports of Great Britain and
of the older continent of Europe. I do not stop to in-
quire why, or to make any conunent on probable causes.
,What interests us just now is not the explanation but
the fact, and our duty and opportunity in the presence
of it. Here are markets which we must supply, and we
must find the means of action. The United States, this
great people for whom we speak and act, should be
ready, as never before, to serve itself and to serve man-
kind; ready with its resources, its energies, its forces
of production, and its means of distribution.

It is a very practical matter, a matter of ways and
means. We have the resources, but are we fully ready
to use them ? And, if we can make ready what we have,
have we the means at hand to distribute it? We are
not fully ready; neither have we the means of distribu-
tion. We are willing, but we are not fully able. We
have the wish to serve and to serve greatly, generously ;
but we are not prepared as we should be. We are not

74 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

ready to mobilize our resources at once. We are not
prepared to use them immediately and at their best,
without delay and without waste.

To speak plainly, we have grossly erred in the way
in which we have stunted and hindered the develop-
ment of our merchant marine. And now, when we
need ships, we have not got them. We have year after
year debated, without end or conclusion, the best policy
to pursue with regard to the use of the ores and forests
and water powers of our national domain in the rich
States of the West, when we should have acted; and
they are still locked up. The key is still turned upon
them, the door shut fast at which thousands of vigorous
men, full of initiative, knock clamorously for admit-
tance. The water power of our navigable streams out-
side the national domain also, even in the eastern States,
where we have worked and planned for generations, is
still not used as it might be, because we will and we
won^t; because the laws we have made do not intelli-
gently balance encouragement against restraint. We
withhold by regulation.

I have come to ask you to remedy and correct these
mistakes and omissions, even at this short session of
a Congress which would certainly seem to have done
all the work that could reasonably be expected of it.
The time and the circimistances are extraordinary, and
so must our efforts be also.

Fortimately, two great measures, finely conceived,
the one to imlock, with proper safeguards, the resources
of the national domain, the other to encourage the use
of the navigable waters outside that domain for the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 75

generation of power, have already passed the House
of Eepresentatives and are ready for immediate con-
sideration and action by the Senate. With the deepest
earnestness I urge their prompt passage. In them
both we turn our backs upon hesitation and makeshift
and formulate a genuine policy of use and conserva-
tion, in the best sense of those words. We owe the
one measure not only to the people of that great western
country for whose free and systematic development, as
it seems to me, our legislation has done so little, but
also to the people of the Nation as a whole ; and we as
dearly owe the other in fulfillment of our repeated
promises that the water power of the country should
in fact as well as in name be put at the disposal of
great industries which can make economical and profit-
aWe use of it, the rights of the public being adequately
guarded the while, and monopoly in the use prevented.
To have begun such measures and not completed them
would indeed mar the record of this great Congress
VGiy seriously. I hope and confidently believe that
t^ey will be completed.

-Ajid there is another great piece of legislation which
awaits and should receive the sanction of the Senate:
I mean the bill which gives a larger measure of self-
government to the people of the Philippines. How
^tter, in this time of anxious questioning and per-
plexed policy, could we show our confidence in the
p^ciples of liberty, as the source as well as the ex-
pression of life, how better could we demonstrate our
o^ni self-possession and steadfastness in the courses
oi justice and disinterestedness than by thus going

76 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

calmly forward to fulfill our promises to a dependent
people, who will now look more anxiously than ever
to see whether we have indeed the liberality, the un-
selfishness, the courage, the faith we have boasted and
professed? I cannot believe that the Senate will let
this great measure of constructive justice await the
action of another Congress. Its passage would nobly
crown the record of these two years of memorable
labor.

But I think that you will agree with me that this
does not complete the toll of our duty. How are we
to carry our goods to the empty markets of which I
have spoken if we have not the ships? How are we
to build up a great trade if we have not the certain
and constant means of transportation upon which all
profitable and useful commerce depends? And how
are we to get the ships if we wait for the trade to
develop without them? To correct the many mistakes
by which we have discouraged and all but destroyed
the merchant marine of the country, to retrace the
steps by which we have, it seems almost deliberately,
withdrawn our flag from the seas, except where, here
and there, a ship of war is bidden carry it or some
wandering yacht displays it, would take a long time
and involve many detailed items of legislation, and the
trade which we ought immediately to handle would
disappear or find other channels while we debated the
items.

The case is not unlike that which confronted us
when our own continent was to be opened up to settle-
ment and industry, and we needed long lines of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 77

way, extended means of transportation prepared before-
hand, if development was not to lag intolerably and
wait interminably. We lavishly subsidized the build-
ing of transcontinental railroads. We look back upon
that with regret now, because the subsidies led to many
scandals of which we are ashamed; but we know that
the railroads had to be built, and if we had it to do
over again we should of course build them, but in an-
other way. Therefore I propose another way of pro-
viding the means of transportation, which must precede,
flot tardily follow, the development of our trade with
our neighbor states of America. It may seem a reversal
of the natural order of things, but it is true, that the
routes of trade must be actually opened — ^by many
fihips and regular sailings and moderate charges — ^be-
'oire streams of merchandise will flow freely and profit-
ably through them.

Hence the pending shipping bill, discussed at the

last session but as yet passed by neither House. In

^^y judgment such legislation is imperatively needed

axi<i can not wisely be postponed. The Government

^TXfit open these gates of trade, and open them wide;

^I>en them before it is altogether profitable to open

^h^em, or altogether reasonable to ask private capital

*^ open them at a venture. It is not a question of

^^ Government monopolizing the field. It should take

^^"tion to make it certain that transportation at reason-

^*^l^ rates will be promptly provided, even where the

^^^*^age is not at first profitable; and then, when the

^^^^*^age has become sufficiently profitable to attract

^^<3 engage private capital, and engage it in abundance.

78 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the Government ought to withdraw. I very earnestly
hope that the Congress will be of this opinion, and that
both Houses will adopt this exceedingly important
bill. . . .

The other topic I shall take leave to mention goes
deeper into the principles of our national life and
policy. It is the subject of national defense.

It cannot be discussed without first answering some
very searching questions. It is said in some quarters
that we are not prepared for war. What is meant
by being prepared? Is it meant that we are not
ready upon brief notice to put a nation in the field,
a nation of men trained to arms? Of course we are
not ready to do that; and we shall never be in time
of peace so long as we retain our present political
principles and institutions. And what is it that it is
suggested we should be prepared to do? To defend
ourselves against attack ? We have always found means
to do that, and shall find them whenever it is necessary
without calling our people away from their necessary
tasks to render compulsory military service in times
of peace.

Allow me to speak with great plainness and direct-
ness upon this great matter and to avow my convictions
with deep earnestness. I have tried to know what
America is, what her people think, what they are, what
they most cherish and hold dear. I hope that some
of their finer passions are in my own heart, — some of
the great conceptions and desires which gave birth to
this Government and which have made the voice of
this people a voice of peace and hope and liberty

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 79

among the peoples 'of the world, and that, speaking
my own thoughts, I shall, at least in part, speak theirs
also, however faintly and inadequately, upon this vital
matter.

We are at peace with all the world. No one who
speaks counsel based on fact or drawn from a just
and candid interpretation of realities can say that there
is reason to fear that from any quarter our inde-
pendence or the integrity of our territory is threatened.
Dread of the power of any other nation we are in-
capable of. We are not jealous of rivalry in the fields
of commerce or of any other peaceful achievement.
We mean to live our own lives as we will; but we
mean also to let live. We are, indeed, a true friend
to all the nations of the world, because we threaten
none, covet the possessions of none, desire the over-
throw of none. Our friendship can be accepted and
is accepted without reservation, because it is offered
^ a spirit and for a purpose which no one need ever
question or suspect. Therein lies our greatness. We
^e the champions of peace and of concord. And we
shoixid be very jealous of this distinction which we
^^e sought to earn. Just now we should be particularly
jealous of it, because it is our dearest present hope
^t this character and reputation may presently, in
^^'s providence, bring us an opportunity such as has
seldom been vouchsafed any nation, the opportunity
to cotmsel and obtain peace in the world and recon-
ciliation and a healing settlement of many a matter
that has cooled and interrupted the friendship of
nations. This is the time above all others when we

80 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

should wish and resolve to keep our strength by self-
possession, our influence by preserving our ancient
principles of action.

From the first we have had a clear and settled
policy with regard to military establishments. We
never have had, and while we retain our present prin-
ciples and ideals we never shall have, a large standing
army. If asked. Are you ready to defend yourselvesi
we reply. Most assuredly, to the utmost; and yet w^
shall not turn America into a military camp. We wil^
not ask our young men to spend the best years of theiJ^
lives making soldiers of themselves. There is anothe^
sort of energy in us. It will know how to declare
itself and make itself effective should occasion arise.^^
And especially when half the world is on fire we shall ^
be careful to make our moral insurance against the
spread of the conflagration very definite and certain
and adequate indeed.

Let us remind ourselves, therefore, of the only thing
we can do or will do. We must depend in every time
of national peril, in the future as in the past, not upon
a standing army, nor yet upon a reserve army, but
upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms. It
will be right enough, right American policy, based
upon our accustomed principles and practices, to pro-
vide a system by which every citizen who will volunteer
for the training may be made familiar with the use
of modem arms, the rudiments of drill and maneuver,
and the maintenance and sanitation of camps. We
should encourage such training and make it a means
of discipline which our young men will learn to value.

IfESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 81

t' is right that we should provide it not only, but
iiat we should make it as attractive as possible, and
> induce our young men to undergo it at such times
3 they can command a little freedom and can seek
le physical development they need, for mere health's
ike, if for nothing more. Every means by which
ich things can be stimulated is legitimate, and such
method smacks of true American ideas. It is right,
K), that the National Guard of the States should be
Bveloped and strengthened by every means which is
3t inconsistent with our obligations to our own people
r with the established policy of our Government. And
lis, also, not because the time or occasion specially
JObs for such measures, but because it should be our
»x)stant policy to make these provisions for our na-
cnal peace and safety.

More than this carries with it a reversal of the
fciole history and character of our polity. More than
:i8, proposed at this time, permit me to say, would
ean merely that we had lost our self-possession, that
B had been thrown off our balance by a war with
tiich we have nothing to do, whose causes can not
xich us, whose very existence affords us opportunities
^ friendship and disinterested service which should
-ake us ashamed of any thought of hostility or fearful
t^eparation for trouble. This is assuredly the oppor-
Uaity for which a people and a government like ours
ere raised up, the opportunity not only to speak but
2tually to embody and exemplify the counsels of peace
Qd amity and the lasting concord which is based on
^^stice and fair and generous dealing.

82 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

A powerful navy we have always regarded as o\
proper and natural means of defense ; and it has always^""*^
been of defense that we have thought, never of ag-
gression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now
what sort of a navy to build? We shall take leave
to be strong upon the seas, in the future as in the
past; and there will be no thought of offense or of
provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bul-
warks. When will the experts tell us just what kind
we should construct — ^and when will they be right for
ten years together, if the relative efficiency of craft
of different kinds and uses continues to change as we
have seen it change under our very eyes in these last
few months?

But I turn away from the subject. It is not new.
There is no new nee4 t^ discuss it. We shall not alter
our attitude toward it because some amongst us are
nervous and excited. We shall easily and sensibly
agree upon a policy of defense. The question has not
changed its aspect because the times are not normal.
Our policy will not be for an occasion. It will be
conceived as a permanent and settled thing, which we
will pursue at all seasons, without haste and after a
fashion perfectly consistent with the peace of the
world, the abiding friendship of States, and the un-
hampered freedom of all with whom we deal. Let
there be no misconception. The country has been mis-
informed. We have not been negligent of national
defense. We are not unmindful of the great responsi-
bility resting upon us. We shall learn and profit by
the lesson of every experience and every new cir-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 88

cumstance; and what is needed will be adequately
done.

I dose, as I began, by reminding you of the great

tasks and duties of peace which challenge our best

powers and invite us to build what will last, the tasks

to which we can address ourselves now and at all

times with free-hearted zest and with all the finest gifts

of constructive wisdom we possess. To develop our

life and our resources; to supply our own people, and

-the i)eople of the world as their need arises, from the

^ibundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade;

^o enrich the commerce of our own States and of the

-^vorld with the products of our mines, our farms, and

ur factories, with the creations of our thought and

e fruits of our character, — ^this is what will hold our

attention and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the

«ars to come, as we strive to show in our life as a

tion what liberty and the inspirations of an emanci-

ted spirit may do for men and for societies, for

dividuals, for states, and for mankind.

AMERICA FIRST

ADDRESS AT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LUNCHEON, NEW YORK.

APRIL 20, 1915

Mb. President, Geittlemen of the Associated Press,
Ladies, and Gentlemen:

I am deeply gratified by the generous reception you
have accorded me. It makes me look back with a touch
of regret to former occasions when I have stood in this
place and enjoyed a greater liberty than is granted me
to-day. There have been times when I stood in this
spot and said what I really thought, and I cannot help
praying that those days of indulgence may be accorded
me again. I have come here to-day, of course, some-
what restrained by a sense of responsibility which I
cannot escape. For I take the Associated Press very
seriously. I know the enormous part that you play in
the affairs not only of this country but of the world.
You deal in the raw material of opinion and, if my con-
victions have any validity, opinion ultimately govern^
the world.

It is, therefore, of very serious things that I thinks
as I face this body of men. I do not think of you, how —
ever, as members of the Associated Press. I do not#"^
think of you as men of different parties or of differen1i"-i
racial derivations or of different religious denomina^J
tions. I want to talk to you as to my fellow citizen*^
of the United States, for there are serious things whic^

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 85

as fellow citizens we ought to consider. The times be-
hind US, gentlemen, have been difficult enough ; the times
before us are likely to be more difficult still, because,
whatever may be said about the present condition of
the world's affairs, it is dear that they are drawing
rapidly to a climax, and at the climax the test will
come, not only for the nations engaged in the present
colossal struggle — ^it will come to them, of course — ^but
the test will come for us particularly.

Do you realize that, roughly speaking, we are the

c>nly great Nation at present disengaged? I am not

isipeaking, of course, with disparagement of the greatness

4:>i those nations in Europe which are not parties to the

jpjresent war, but I am thinking of their close neighbor-

iiood to it. I am thinking how their lives much more

tioLSL.:si ours touch the very heart and stuff of the business,

T^li^reas we have rolling between us and those bitter

across the water 3,000 miles of cool and silent

Our atmosphere is not j^t charged with those

di^rfcurbing elements which must permeate every nation

^^ ^IKurope. Therefore, is it not likely that the nations

^-^ 'de world will some day turn to us for the cooler

^^^^assment of the elements engaged? I am not now

^^^*-^*:iking so preposterous a thought as that we should

^^ dn judgment upon them — ^no nation is fit to sit in

^^^^pment upon any other nation — ^but that we shall some

^^*-"^^ have to assist in reconstructing the processes of

^^^^ce. Our resources are untouched; we are more and

'^^^ire becoming by the force of circumstances the medi-

ft-xii^g Nation of the world in respect of its finance. We

^Xist make up our minds what are the best things to do

86 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POUCY

and what are the best ways to do them. We must put
our money, our energy, our enthusiasm, our sympathy
into these things, and we must have our judgments pre-
pared and our spirits chastened against the coming of
that day.

So that I am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I
say that our whole duty, for the present at any rate, is
summed up in this motto, ** America first.'* Let us think
of America before we think of Europe, in order that
America may be fit to be Europe's friend when the day
of tested friendship comes. The test of friendship is
not now sympathy with the one side or the other, but
getting ready to help both sides when the struggle is
over. The basis of neutrality, gentlemen, is not indif-
ference; it is not self-interest. The basis of neutrality
is sympathy for mankind. It is fairness, it is good will,
at bottom. It is impartiality of spirit and of judgment*
I wish that all of our fellow citizens could realize that.
There is in some quarters a disposition to create dis-
tempers in this body poUtic. Men are even uttering
slanders against the United States, as if to excite her.
Men are saying that if we should go to war upon either
side there would be a divided America — an abominable
libel of ignorance 1 America is not all of it vocal just
now. It is vocal in spots, but I, for one, have a complete
and abiding faith in that great silent body of Ameri-
cans who are not standing up and shouting and express-
ing their opinions just now, but are waiting to find out
and support the duty of America. I am just as sure of
their solidity and of their loyalty and of their una-
nimity, if we act justly, as I am that the history of this

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 87

country has at every crisis and turning-point illustrated
this great lesson.

We are the mediating Nation of the world, I do not
mean that we undertake not to mind our own business
and to mediate where other people are quarreling. I
mean the word in a broader sense. We are compoimded
of the nations of the world ; we mediate their blood, we
xnediate their traditions, we mediate their sentiments,
iJieir tastes, their passions ; we are ourselves compoimded
4^i those things. We are, therefore, able to imderstand
£iJl nations ; we are able to understand them in the com-
pound, not separately, as partisans, but unitedly as
Icxiowing and comprehending and embodying them all.
It is in that sense that I mean that America is a medi-
ating Nation. The opinion of America, the action of
-Aaxierica, is ready to turn, and free to tiun, in any
direction. Did you ever reflect upon how almost every
^ttier nation has through long centuries been headed in
one direction? That is not true of the United States.
^I^lie United States has no racial momentum. It has no
\Ty back of it which makes it run all its energies
all its ambitions in one particular direction. And
lerica is particularly free in this, that she has no
^^^Unpering ambitions as a world power. We do not
^^^nt a foot of anybody's territory. If we have been
^c>liged by circumstances, or have considered ourselves
^ be obliged by circumstances, in the past, to take terri-
**^^ which we otherwise would not have thought of
^^Jring, I believe I am right in saying that we have
^^^^Dsidered it our duty to administer that territory, not
*oir ourselves but for the people living in it, and to put

88 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

this burden upon our consciences — ^not to think that th0
thing is ours for our use, but to regard ourselves a-
trustees of the great business for those to whom it does
really belong, trustees ready to hand it over to the
cestui que trust at any time when the business seems
to make that possible and feasible. That is what I mean
by saying we have no hampering ambitions. We do not
want anything that does not belong to us. Is not a
nation in that position free to serve other nations, and
is not a nation like that ready to form some part of the
assessing opinion of the world?

My interest in the neutrality of the United States
is not the petty desire to keep out of trouble. To judge
by my experience, I have never been able to keep out
of trouble. I have never looked for it, but I have
always found it. I do not want to walk aroimd trouble.
If any man wants a scrap that is an interesting scrap
and worth while, I am his man. I warn him that he is
not going to draw me into the scrap for his advertise-
ment, but if he is looking for trouble that is the trouble
of men in general and I can help a little, why, then, I
am in for it. But I am interested in neutrality because
there is something so much greater to do than fight;
there is a distinction waiting for this Nation that no
nation has ever yet got. That is the distinction of abso-
lute self-control and self-mastery. Whom do you ad-
mire most among your friends? The irritable mant
The man out of whom you can get a **rise'' without
trying ? The man who will fight at the drop of the hat,
whether he knows what the hat is dropped for or not?
Don't you admire and don't you fear, if you have to

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 89

contest with him, the self-mastered man who watches
you with cahn eye and comes in only when you have
carried the thing so far that you must be disposed of 9
That is the man you respect. That is the man who, you
know, has at bottom a much more fundamental and ter-
rible courage than the irritable, fighting man. Now, I
covet for America this splendid courage of reserve moral
force, and I wanted to point out to you gentlemen sim-
ply this:

There is news and news. There is what is called

news from Turtle Bay that turns out to be falsehood,

^t any rate in what it is said to signify, but which, if

^ou could get the Nation to believe it true, might dis-

-turb our equilibrium and our self-possession. We ought

^lot to deal in stuff of that kind. We ought not to per-

onit that sort of thing to use up the electrical energy of

"tlie wires, because its energy is malign, its energy is not

^>f the truth, its energy is of mischief. It is possible to

eift truth. I have known some things to go out on the

"^jeires as true when there was only one man or one group

of men who could have told the originators of that report

"whether it was true or not, and they were not asked

"^^hether it was true or not for fear it might not be true.

T^iat sort of report ought not to go out over the wires.

T?here is generally, if not always, somebody who knows

"Whether the thing is so or not, and in these days, above

cdl other days, we ought to take particular pains to resort

to the one small group of men, or to the one man if

there be but one, who knows whether those things are

true or not. The world ought to know the truth; the

world ought not at this period of unstable equilibrium

90 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POUCY

to be disturbed by rumor, ought not to be disturbed by
imaginative combinations of circumstances, or, rather,
by circumstances stated in combination which do not
belong in combination. You gentlemen, and gentlemen
engaged like you, are holding the balances in your hand.
This unstable equilibrium rests upon scales that are in
your hands. For the food of opinion, as I began by
iiuying, is the news of the day. I have known many a
man to go off at a tangent on information that was not
reliable. Indeed, that describes the majority of men«
The world is held stable by the man who waits for the
next day to find out whether the report was true or not.

We cannot afford, therefore, to let the rumors of
irresponsible persons and origins get into the atmos-
phere of the United States. We are trustees for what
1 venture to say is the greatest heritage that any nation
over had, the love of justice and righteousness and
human liberty. For, f imdamentally, those are the things
to which America is addicted and to which she is devoted.
There are groups of selfish men in the United States,
there are coteries, where sinister things are purposed,
but the great heart of the American people is just as
sound and true as it ever was. And it is a single heart ;
it is the heart of America. It is not a heart made up
of sections selected out of other countries.

What I try to remind myself of every day when I am
almost overcome by perplexities, what I try to remem-
ber, is what the people at home are thinking about. I
try to put myself in the place of the man who does not
know all the things that I know and ask myself what
he would like the policy of this coimtry to be. Not the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 91

talkative man, not the partisan man, not the man who
remembers first that he is a Republican or a Democrat,
or that his parents were German or English, but the
man who remembers first that the whole destiny of
modem affairs centers largely upon his being an Ameri-
can first of all. K I permitted myself to be a partisan
in this present struggle, I would be imworthy to repre-
sent you. If I permitted myself to forget the people/
who are not partisans, I would be imworthy to be your
spokesman. I am not sure that I am worthy to repre-
sent you, but I do claim this degree of worthiness — ^that
before everything else I love America.

ADDRESS TO NEWLY NATURALIZED AMER-
ICAN CITIZENS, CONVENTION HALL,
PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1915

Mr. Mayor, Fellow Citizens:

It warms my heart thkt you should give me such a
reception; but it is not of myself that I wish to think
to-night, but of those who have just become citizens of
the United States-

This is the only country in the world which experi-
ences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other coun-
tries depend upon the multiplication of their own native
people. This country is constantly drinking strength
out of new sources by the voluntary association with it
of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking
women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the
free will of independent people it is being constantly
renewed from generation to generation by the same
process by which it was originally created. It is as if
humanity had determined to see to it that this great
Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity, should not
lack for the allegiance of the people of the world.

You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the
United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance
to no one, unless it be God — certainly not of allegiance
to those who temporarily represent this great Govern-
ment. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great
ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 93

the hmnan race- You have said, "We are going to
America not only to earn a living, not only to seek the
t^gs which it was more difficult to obtain where we
^ei^e bom, but to help forward the great enterprises of
tile hmnan spirit — ^to let men know that everywhere in
^^ World there are men who will cross strange oceans
^d go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them
^ they can but satisfy their quest for what their spirits
^^Ve; knowing that whatever the speech there is but
^«e longing and utterance of the human heart, and
^'^"t is for liberty and justice/' And while you bring
^ countries with you, you come with a purpose of
l^^^ving all other coimtries behind you — ^bringing what
^ l>€st of their spirit, but not looking over your shoul-
^^^x^ and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to
lea^v^e behind in them. I certainly would not be one even
*^o suggest that a man cease to love the home of his
*^^Jrtli and the nation of his origin — ^these things are very
f^^^x^ed and ought not to be put out of our hearts — ^but
^^ is one thing to love the place where you were born
^-^^ it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place
7^ ^^hich you go. You cannot dedicate yourself to
«rica unless you become in every respect and with
purpose of your will thorough Americans. You
lot become thorough Americans if you think of
^^^"^x^^ves in groups. America does not consist of
^^^^^Xips. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to
* ^*^ — L.--.-!^-^ national group in America has not yet

^^ome an American, and the man who goes among you
^^ tiirade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live
^^^^^€r the Stars and Stripes.

94 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

My urgent advice to you would be, not only always
to think first of America, but always, also, to think first
of humanity. You do not love humanity if you seek to
divide himianity into jealous camps. Himianity can be
welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice,
not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man
who seeks to make personal capital out of the passions
of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal of
America, for America was created to unite mankind by
those passions which lift and not by the passions which
separate and debase. We came to America, either our-
selves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the
ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they
had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and
to make sure of the things that unite. It was but an
historical accident no doubt that this great coimtry was
called the *^ United States ^^; yet I am very thankful that
it has that word *^ United ^^ in its title, and the man
who seeks to divide man from man, group from group,
interest from interest in this great Union is striking at
its very heart.

It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in think-
ing of those of you who have just sworn allegiance to
this great Government, that you were drawn across the
ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief,
by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expec-
tation of a better kind of life. No doubt you have been
disappointed in some of us. Some of us are very dis-
appointing. No doubt you have found that justice in
the United States goes only with a pure heart and a
right purpose as it does everywhere else in the world.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 95

ZNo doubt what you found here did not seem touched for

^ou, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal

-which you had conceived beforehand. But remember

^this: If we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you

7>rought some of it with you. A man does not go out

^to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not

Diope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if

some of us have forgotten what America believed in,

:^oii, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal

^>t the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make

^ou welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what

lerica was intended for, I will thank God if you will

me. I was bom in America. You dreamed

^clreams of what America was to be, and I hope you

"■Drought the dreams with you. No man that does not see

^^idfiions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any

enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with

'ou, America is more likely to realize dreams such as

^ou brought. You are enriching us if you came expect-

us to be better than we are.

See, my friends, what that means. It means that

^^ jnericans must have a consciousness different from the

'•^consciousness of every other nation in the world. I am

lot saying this with even the slightest thought of criti-

ism of other nations. You know how it is with a

:amily. A family gets centered on itself if it is not

*^3areful and is less interested in the neighbors than it

^S^ in its own members. So a nation that is not con-

^stantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the

^imrrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas, America

Inust have this consciousness, that on all sides it touches

»6 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

elbows and touches hearts with all the nations of man-
kind. The example of America must be a special ex-
ample. The example of America must be the example
not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace
because peace is the healing and elevating influence of
the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a
man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a
nation being so right that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right.

You have come into this great Nation voluntarily
seeking something that we have to give, and all that we
have to give is this : We cannot exempt you from work.
No man is exempt from work anywhere in the world.
We cannot exempt you from the strife and the heart-
breaking burden of the struggle of the day — ^that is
common to mankind everywhere ; we cannot exempt you
from the loads that you must carry. We can only make
them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That
is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the
spirit of justice.

When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the
committee that accompanied him to come up from
Washington to meet this great company of newly ad-
mitted citizens, I could not decline the invitation. I
ought not to be away from Washington, and yet I feel
that it has renewed my spirit as an American to be
here. In Washington men tell you so many things every
day that are not so, and I like to come and stand in the
presence of a great body of my fellow-citizens, whether
they have been my fellow-citizens a long time or a short
time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 97

^rL^iJi them and go back feeling what you have so gen-
exTO"«ifily given me — ^the sense of your support and of the

vitality in your hearts of the great ideals which
made America the hope of the world.

THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES

ADDRESS AT THE LUNCHEON TENDERED

THE PRESIDENT BY THE MAYOR'S COM-

MITTEE, NEW YORK CITY, MAY 17, 1915

Mb. Mayor, Mr. Secretary, Admiral Fletcher, and
Gentlemen of the Fleet:

This is not an occasion upon which, it seems to me,
it would be wise for me to make many remarks, but I
would deprive myself of a great gratification if I did
not express my pleasure in being here, my gratitude
for the splendid reception which has been accorded me
as the representative of the Nation, and my profound
interest in the Navy of the United States. That is an
interest with which I was apparently bom, for it began
when I was a yoimgster and has ripened with my knowl-
edge of the affairs and policies of the United States.

I think it is a natural, instinctive judgment of the
people of the United States that they express their
power most appropriately in an efficient navy, and their
interest in their ships is partly, I believe, because that
Navy is expected to express their character, not within
our own borders where that character is imderstood, but
outside our borders where it is hoped we may occasion-
ally touch others with some slight vision of what Amer-
ica stands for.

Before I speak of the Navy of the United States, I
want to take advantage of the first public opportunity I

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 99

have had to speak of the Secretary of the Navy, to ex-
press my confidence and my admiration, and to say that
he has my imqualified support. For I have counseled
with Viim in intimate fashion ; I know how sincerely he
has it at heart that everything that the Navy does and
liandles should be done and handled as the people of the
TJnited States wish it handled. Efficiency is something
XJkore than organization. Efficiency runs to the extent
of lifting the ideals of a service above every personal
interest. So when I speak my support of the Secretary
the Navy I am merely speaking my support of what
2snow every true lover of the Navy to desire and to
pxi.3*pose; for the Navy of the United States is, as I
e said, a body specially intrusted with the ideals of
erica.

I like to image in my thought this idea : These quiet

s lying in the river have no suggestion of bluster

^^oiit them, no intimation of aggression. They are com-

i^Q^tuded by men thoughtful of the duty of citizens as

^«U as the duty of officers, men acquainted with the

^^^^^^aditions of the great service to which they belong,

ttxexi who know by touch with the people of the United

»t«tte8 what sort of purposes they ought to entertain and

''^Ha.t sort of discretion they ought to exercise in order

^ Viae those engines of force as engines to promote the

^^texests of himianity.

The interesting and inspiring thing about America,

S^xitlemen, is that she asks nothing for herself except

^^^t she has a right to ask for humanity itself. We

'^^^t no nation's property. We mean to question no

^ticn's honor. We do not wish to stand selfishly in

100 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the way of the development of any nation. We want
nothing that we cannot get by our own legitimate enter-
prise and by the inspiration of our own example; and,
standing for these things, it is not pretension on our
part to say that we are privileged to stand for what
every nation would wish to stand for, and speak for
those things which all himianity must desire.

When I think of the flag which those ships carry,
the only touch of color about them, the only thing that
moves as if it had a subtle spirit in it in their solid
structure, it seems to me that I see alternate strips of
parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty
and justice, and stripes of blood spilt to vindicate those
rights; and, then, in the comer a prediction of the blue
serene into which every nation may swim which stands
for these things.

The mission of America is the only thing that a
sailor or a soldier should think about. He has nothing
to do with the formulation of her policy. He is to sup-
port her policy whatever it is ; but he is to support her
policy in the spirit of herself, and the strength of our
polity is that we who for the time being administer the
affairs of this Nation do not originate her spirit. We
attempt to embody it ; we attempt to realize it in action ;
we are dominated by it, we do not dictate it.

So with every man in arms who serves the Nation;
he stands and waits to do the thing which the Nation
desires. Those who represent America sometimes seem
to forget her programs, but the people never forget
them. It is as startling as it is touching to see how
whenever you touch a principle you touch the hearts of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 101

the people of the United States, They listen to your
debates of policy, they determine which party they will
prefer to power, they choose and prefer as between men,
but their real affection, their real force, their real irre-
sistible momentum is for the ideas which men embody.
JL never go on the streets of a great city without feeling
''that somehow I do not confer elsewhere than on the
Greets with the great spirit of the people themselves,
oing about their business, attending to the things which
xnmediately concern them, and yet carrying a treasure
t iheir hearts all the while, ready to be stirred not only
±idividuals but as members of a great union of hearts
t constitutes a patriotic people. This sight in the
«r touches me merely as a symbol of all this ; and it
qimickens the pulse of every man who realizes these
fixings to have anything to do with them. When a crisis
^x^crurs in this country, gentlemen, it is as if you put
y^oxir hand on the pulse of a dynamo, it is as if the
^^i^iiags that you were in connection with were spiritually
^^^ed, as if you had nothing to do with them except, if
listen truly, to speak the things that y^u hear.
These things now brood over the river; this spirit
moves with the men who represent the Nation in
*^e Navy; these things will move upon the waters in the
^^^axieuvers — ^no threat lifted against any man, against
^^y nation, against any interest, but just a great solemn
^^clence that the force of America is the force of moral
P^clnciple, that there is nothing else that she loves, and
^^t there is nothing else for which she will contend.

ADDRESS AT THE PAN AMERICAN FINAN-
CIAL CONFERENCE, PAN AMERICAN
BUILDING, WASHINGTON,
MAY 24, 1915

The diplomatic and consular appropriations bill, approved by President Wil*
son March 4, 1916, contained a provision for a financial conference of the
Americas :

''The President is hereby authorized to extend to the Governments of Cen*
tral and South America an invitation to be represented by their ministers of
finance and leading bankers, not exceeding three in number in each case, to
attend a conference with the Secretary of the Treasury in the City of Washington,
at such date as shall be determined by the President, with a view to establishing
closer and more satisfactory financial relations between their countries and the
United States of America, and authority is hereby given to the Secretary of the
Treasury to invite, in his discretion, representative bankers of the United States
to participate in the said conference, and for the purpose of meeting such actual
and necessary expenses as may be incidental to the meeting of said conference
and for the entertainment of the foreign conferees the sum of $50,000 is hereby ap-
propriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be
expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury."

In pursuance of this act the Secretary of State extended invitations, on
behalf of the President, to the countries of Latin America, all of which were
represented by delegates of their choice at a meeting held in Washington, May
24-29, 1915. Of this conference, the Honorable William G. McAdoo, Secretary of
the Treasury, was president, and at the opening session of the conference.
President Wilson delivered the following address.

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen op the American Repub-
lics, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The part that falls to me this moming is a very
simple one, but a very delightful one. It is to bid you
a very hearty welcome indeed to this conference. The
welcome is the more hearty because we are convinced
that a conference like this will result in the things that
we most desire. I am sure that those who have this
conference in charge have already made plain to you
its purpose and its spirit. Its purpose is to draw the

102

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS lOS

Lerican Republics together by bonds of common inter-
^^st and of mutual understanding; and we comprehend,
hope, just what the meaning of that is. There can be
10 sort of union of interest if there is a purpose of
exploitation by any one of the parties to a great con-
'erence of this sort. The basis of successful commer-
dal intercourse is common interest, not selfish interest.
'i is an actual interchange of services and of values:
is based upon reciprocal relations and not selfish rela-
'fcioxis. It is based upon those things upon which all suc-
<3eseiful economic intercourse must be based, because
selfishness breeds suspicion; suspicion, hostility; and
lioj3tility, failure. We are not, therefore, trying to make
of each other, but we are trying to be of use to
another.
lit is very surprising to me, it is even a source of
ttioxrtification, that a conference like this should have
t>^eii so long delayed, that it should never have occurred
^f ore, that it should have required a crisis of the world
^ slow the Americas how truly they were neighbors to
oxie another. If there is any one happy circumstance,
S^xitlemen, arising out of the present distressing condi-
^on of the world, it is that it has revealed us to one
^xiother : it has shown us what it means to be neighbors.
-^^d I cannot help harboring the hope, the very high
*^^pe, that by this commerce of minds with one another,
^ ^ell as commerce in goods, we may show the world in
part the path to peace. It would be a very great thing
^ the Americas could add to the distinction which they
^eady wear this of showing the way to peace, to per-
^^^tanent peace.

104 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

The way to peace for us, at any rate, is manifest.
It is the kind of rivalry which does not involve aggres-
sion. It is the knowledge that men can be of the greatest
service to one another, and nations of the greatest serv-
ice to one another, when the jealousy between them is
merely a jealousy of excellence, and when the basis of
their intercourse is friendship. There is only one way
in which we wish to take advantage of you and that is
by making better goods, by doing the things that we
seek to do for each other better, if we can, than you do
them, and so spurring you on, if we might, by so hand-
some a jealousy as that to excel us. I am so keenly
aware that the basis of personal friendship is this com-
petition in excellence, that I am perfectly certain that
this is the only basis for the friendship of nations, — ^this
handsome rivalry, this rivalry in which there is no dis-
like, this rivalry in which there is nothing but the hope
of a common elevation in great enterprises which we
can undertake in common.

There is one thing that stands in our way among
others — ^f or you are more conversant with the circum-
stances than I am; the thing I have chiefly in mind is
the physical lack of means of communication, the lack
of vehicles, — ^the lack of ships, the lack of established
routes of trade, — ^the lack of those things which are
absolutely necessary if we are to have true commercial
and intimate commercial relations with one another;
and I am perfectly clear in my judgment that if private
capital cannot soon enter upon the adventure of estab-
lishing these physical means of communication, the
government must imdertake to do so. We cannot in-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 105

definitely stand apart and need each other for the lack
of what can easily be supplied, and if one instrumen-
tality cannot supply it, then another must be found
which will supply it. We cannot know each other unless
we see each other ; we cannot deal with each other unless
we communicate with each other. So soon as we com-
municate and are upon a familiar footing of intercourse,
^e shall understand one another, and the bonds between
^e Americas will be such bonds that no influence that
'tiie world may produce in the future will ever break
^ChenL

If I am selfish for America, I at least hope that
,smy selfishness is enlightened. The selfishness Jkhat hurts
^"*he other party is not enlightened selfishness. If I were
tcting upon a mere groimd of selfishness, I would seek
;o benefit the other party and so tie him to myself; so
^3ithat even if you were to suspect me of selfishness, I hope
,^ou will also suspect me of intelligence and of knowing
'"tte only safe way for the establishment of the things
^"which we covet, as well as the establishment of the
^4Jiings which we desire and which we would feel honored
we could earn and win.

I have said these things because they will perhaps
enable you to understand how far from formal my wel-
^5ome to this body is. It is a welcome from the heart,
it is a welcome from the head ; it is a welcome inspired
Jby what I hope are the highest ambitions of those who
3ive in these two great continents, who seek to set an
example to the world in freedom of institutions, free-
dom of trade, and intelligence of mutual service.

ADDRESS TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION, CONTINEN-
TAL HALL, WASHINGTON, OCTO-
BER 11, 1915

The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, at
whose meeting in the City of Washington on October 11, 1915, the following
address was delivered, was organised in Washington, October 11, 1890. The
objects of the Society, as stated by Article 2 of its Constitution, are:

"1. To perpetuate the memory of the spirit of the men and women who
achieved American Independence, by the acquisition and protection of historical
spots, and the erection of monuments; by the encouragement of historical re-
search in relation to the Revolution and the publication of its results; by the
preservation of monuments and relics, and of the records of the individual serv-
ices of Revolutionary soldiers and patriots, and by the promotion of oelebrationa
of all patriotic anniversaries.

*'2. To carry out the injunction of Washington in his farewell address to
the American people, 'to promote, as an object of primary importance, institu-
tions for the general diffusion of knowledge,' thus developing an enlightened
public opinion, and afford to young and old such advantages as shall develop in
them the largest capacity for performing the duties of American citizens.

"3. To cherish, maintain, and extend the institution of American freedom,
to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid in securing for man-
kind all the blessings of liberty."

Madam President and Ladies and Gentlemen:

Again it is my very great privilege to welcome you
to the City of Washington and to the hospitalities of
the Capital. May I admit a point of ignorance ? I was
surprised to learn that this association is so yoimg, and
that an association so yoimg should devote itself wholly
to memory I cannot believe. For to me the duties to
which you are consecrated are more than the duties and
the pride of memory.

There is a very great thrill to be had from the
memories of the American Eevolution, but the Ameri-

106

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 107

can Jtevolution was a beginmng, not a consummation,
and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the duty
of biinging the things then begun to a noble triumph
of completion. For it seems to me that the peculiarity
of patriotism in America is that it is not a mere senti-
ment. It is an active principle of conduct. It is some-
thing that was bom into the world, not to please it but
to regenerate it. It is something that was bom into the
'w^oxrld to replace systems that had preceded it and to
brdxig men out upon a new plane of privilege. The
&loiry of the men whose memories you honor and per-
X>«tixate is that they saw this vision, and it was a vision
Uie future. It was a vision of great days to come
a little handful of three million people upon the
lers of a single sea should have become a great mul-
le of free men and women spreading across a great
^^^^^^^tinent, dominating the shores of two oceans, and
^^^•^ding West as well as East the influences of individual
'^edom. These things were consciously in their minds
tiey framed the great Government which was born
of the American Revolution; and every time we
ler to perpetuate their memories it is incumbent
us that we should be worthy of recalling them and
we should endeavor by every means in our power
Emulate their example.

^Ihe American Revolution was the birth of a nation;

"^as the creation of a great free republic based upon

'^<iitions of personal liberty which theretofore had been

^^*kfined to a single little island, but which it was pur-

^^^s^d should spread to all mankind. And the singular

(cination of American history is that it has been a

108 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

process of constant re-creation, of making over again
in each generation the thing which was conceived at
first. You know how peculiarly necessary that has been
in our case, because America has not grown by the mere
multiplication of the original stock. It is easy to pre-
serve tradition with continuity of blood ; it is easy in a
single family to remember the origins of the race and
the purposes of its organization; but it is not so easy
when that race is constantly being renewed and aug-
mented from other sources, from stocks that did not
carry or originate the same principles.

So from generation to generation strangers have had
to be indoctrinated with the principles of the American
family, and the wonder and the beauty of it all has been
that the infection has been so generously easy. For the
principles of liberty are united with the principles of
hope. Every individual, as well as every Nation, wishes
to realize the best thing that is in him, the best thing
that can be conceived out of the materials of which his
spirit is constructed. It has happened in a way that
fascinates the imagination that we have not only been
augmented by additions from outside, but that we have
been greatly stimulated by those additions. Living in
the easy prosperity of a free people, knowing that the
sun had always been free to shine upon us and prosper
our undertakings, we did not realize how hard the task
of liberty is and how rare the privilege of liberty is;
but men were drawn out of every climate and out of
every race because of an irresistible attraction of their
spirits to the American ideal. They thought of America
as lifting, like that great statue in the harbor of New

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 109

Tori, a torch to light the pathway of men to the things
thstt; they desire, and men of all sorts and conditions
stiriiggled toward that light and came to our shores with
^xi ^ager desire to realize it, and a hunger for it such as
soii3.€ of us no longer felt, for we were as if satiated and
satiiefied and were indulging ourselves after a fashion
^^i^^i-* did not belong to the ascetic devotion of the early
^^"v^otees of those great principles. Strangers came to
rexxidbid us of what we had promised ourselves and
^^ti^rough ourselves had promised mankind. All men
^^^^^^^ci^e to us and said, ** Where is the bread of life with
^^i^ich you promised to feed us, and have you partaken
^^ ii; yourselves f For my part, I believe that the con-
it renewal of this people out of foreign stocks has
a constant source of reminder to this people of
it the inducement was that was offered to men who
^^^xild come and be of our number.

^ow we have come to a time of special stress and

There never was a time when we needed more

^l^^uly to conserve the principles of our own patriotism

this present time. The rest of the world from

our polities were drawn seems for the time in the

^^^^"O^cible and no man can predict what will come out of

crucible. We stand apart, unembroiied, conscious

our own principles, conscious of what we hope and

>ose, so far as our powers permit, for the world at

_^ , and it is necessary that we should consolidate

*^^ American principle. Every political action, every

^^^ial action, should have for its object in America at

^^^^ time to challenge the spirit of America; to ask

*^^t every man and woman who thinks first of America

110 PRESroENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

should rally to the standards of our life. There have
been some among us who have not thought first of
America, who have thought to use the might of America
in some matter not of America's origination. They have
forgotten that the first duty of a nation is to express
its own individual principles in the action of the family
of nations and not to seek to aid and abet any rival or
contrary ideal.

Neutrality is a negative word. It is a word that does
not express what America ought to feel. America has
a heart and that heart throbs with all sorts of intense
sympathies, but America has schooled its heart to love
the things that America believes in and it ought to
devote itself only to the things that America believes
in ; and, believing that America stands apart in its ideals,
it ought not to allow itself to be drawn, so far as its
heart is concerned, into anybody's quarrel. Not because
it does not understand the quarrel, not because it does
not in its head assess the merits of the controversy, but
because America has promised the world to stand apart
and maintain certain principles of action which are
grounded in law and in justice. We are not trying to
keep out of trouble ; we are trying to preserve the foun-
dations upon which peace can be rebuilt. Peace can be
rebuilt only upon the ancient and accepted principles
of international law, only upon those things which re-
mind nations of their duties to each other, and, deeper
than that, of their duties to mankind and to humanity.

America has a great cause which is not confined to
the American continent. It is the cause of humanity
itself. I do not mean in anything that I say even to

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 111

imply a judgment upon any nation or upon any policy,
for my object here this afternoon is not to sit in judg-
ment upon anybody but ourselves and to challenge you
to assist all of us who are trying to make America more
than ever conscious of her own principles and her own
duty. I look forward to the necessity in every political
agitation in the years which are immediately at hand
of calling upon every man to declare himself, where
he stands. Is it America first or is it not?

We ought to be very careful about some of the im-
pressions that we are forming just now. There is too
general an impression, I fear, that very large numbers
of our fellow-citizens bom in other lands have not enter-
iained with sufficient intensity and affection the Ameri-
-can ideal. But the number of such is, I am sure, not
Jarge. Those who would seek to represent them are
very Tocal, but they are not very influential. Some of
iiie best stuff of America has come out of foreign lands,
^nd some of the best stuff in America is in the men who
-are naturalized citizens of the United States. I would
"not be afraid upon the test of ** America first" to take
^ census of all the foreign-bom citizens of the United
States, for I know that the vast majority of them came
^ere because they believed in America ; and their belief
in America has made them better citizens than some
3)eople who were bom in America. They can say that
ihey have bought this privilege with a great price. They
liave left their homes, they have left their kindred, they
have, broken all the nearest and dearest ties of human
life in order to come to a new land, take a new rootage,
begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their

112 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

confidence in a new principle; whereas, it cost ns none
of these things. We were bom into this privilege; we
were rocked and cradled in it ; we did nothing to create
it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our part to
do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not
deceived as to the balance of opinion among the foreign-
born citizens of the United States, but I am in a hurry
for an opportunity to have a line-up and let the mei
who are thinking first of other countries stand on one
side and all those that are for America first, last, and al
the time on the other side.

' Now, you can do a great deal in this direction. Whei
I was a college officer I used to be very much opposec
to hazing; not because hazing is not wholesome, bu
because sophomores are poor judges. I remember a ver^
dear friend of mine, a professor of ethics on the othei
side of the water, was asked if he thought it was evei
justifiable to tell a lie. He said Yes, he thought it wai
sometimes justifiable to lie; **but,'' he said, **it is s<
difficult to judge of the justification that I usually tel
the truth.'* I think that ought to be the motto of tli
sophomore. There are freshmen who need to be hazec
but the need is to be judged by such nice tests that
sophomore is hardly old enough to determine them. Bu
the world can determine them. We are not freshmen s
college, but we are constantly hazed. I would a grea
deal rather be obliged to draw pepper up my nose tha
to observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I woul
a great deal rather be beaten than ostracized. I woul
a great deal rather endure any sort of physical hare
ship if I might have the affection of my fellow-mei

r Wo constantly discipline our fellow-citizens by having

AH opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline we
<>uglit now to administer to everybody who is not to the
^ery core of his heart an American. Just have an
opixiion about him and let him experience the atmos-
pheric effects of that opinion I And I know of no body
^f X>ersons comparable to a body of ladies for creating
^^ atmosphere of opinion I I have myself in part yielded
*o tihe influence of that atmosphere, though it took me
* l^ong time to determine how I was going to vote in
-^e^w Jersey.

So it has seemed to me that my privilege this after-
was not merely a privilege of courtesy, but the
privilege of reminding you — ^f or I am sure I am
►ing nothing more— of the great principles which we
associated to promote. I for my part rejoice that
belong to a country in which the whole business of
S^ovemment is so difficult. We do not take orders from
^•^*^yl)ody; it is a universal communication of conviction,
e most subtle, delicate, and difficult of processes.
ere is not a single individual's opinion that is not
Qome consequence in making up the grand total, and
l>e in this great co-operative effort is the most stimu-
ig thing in the world. A man standing alone may
misdoubt his own judgment. He may mistrust his
intellectual processes; he may even wonder if his
^ heart leads him right in matters of public conduct ;
^^"^ -^ he finds his heart part of the great throb of a

Lonal life, there can be no doubt about it. If that is
happy circumstance, then he may know that he is
^^*t of one of the great forces of the world.

114 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to
America if I did not feel that she was something more
than a rich and powerful nation. I should not feel
proud to be in some respects and for a little while her
spokesman if I did not believe that there was some-
thing else than physical force behind her. I believe that
the glory of America is that she is a great spiritual con-
ception and that in the spirit of her institutions dwells
not only her distinction but her power. The one thing
that the world cannot permanently resist is the moral
force of great and triumphant convictions.

ADDRESS ON POLITICAL RELATIONS AT

THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY DIN-

NER OF THE MANHATTAN CLUB,

NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER

4, 1915

3iB. TOASTMASTER AND GENTLEMEN:

I warmly felicitate the club upon the completion of

r^fty years of successful and interesting life. Club life

:X3iay be made to mean a great deal to those who know

Jbow to use it. I have no doubt that to a great many of

jp'ou has come genuine stimulation in the associations of

"tldfi place and that as the years have multiplied you have

seen more and more the useful ends which may be served

by organizations of this sort.

But I have not come to speak wholly of that, for

tti^xe are others of your own members who can speak

iJie dub with a knowledge and an intelligence which

one can have who has not been intimately associated

it. Men band themselves together for the sake of

*^^ association no doubt, but also for something greater

deeper than that, — ^because they are conscious of

ion interests lying outside their business occupa-

^Xis, because they are members of the same conmiunity

in frequent intercourse find mutual stimulation and

^ ^eal maxiTnuTn of vitality and power. I shall assume

^*^^t here around the dinner table on this memorable

^^^casion our talk should properly turn to the wide and

^^^5»mon interests which are most in our thoughts,

115

116 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

whether they be the interests of the community or of
the nation.

A year and a half ago our thought would have been
ahnost altogether of great domestic questions. They are
many and of vital consequence. We must and shall
address ourselves to their solution with diligence, firm-
ness, and self-possession, notwithstanding we find our-
selves in the midst of a world disturbed by great dis-
aster and ablaze with terrible war; but our thought is
now inevitably of new things about which formerly we
gave ourselves little concern. We are thinking now
chiefly of our relations with the rest of the world, — ^not
our commercial relations, — ^about those we have thought
and planned always, — ^but about our political relations,
our duties as an individual and independent force in
the world to ourselves, our neighbors, and the world
itself.

Our principles are well known. It is not necessary
to avow them again. We believe in political liberty and
founded our great government to obtain it, the liberty
of men and of peoples,— of men to choose their own
lives and of peoples to choose their own allegiance. Our
ambition, also, all the world has knowledge of. It is
not only to be free and prosperous ourselves, but also
to be the friend and thoughtful partisan of those who
are free or who desire freedom the world over. If we
have had aggressive purposes and covetous ambitions,
they were the fruit of our thoughtless youth as a nation
and we have put them aside. We shall, I confidently
believe, never again take another foot of territory by
conquest. We shall never in any circumstances seek to

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 117

make an independent people subject to our dominion;
l}ecause we believe, we passionately believe, in the right
of every people to choose their own allegiance and be
free of masters altogether. For ourselves we wish noth-
ing but the full liberty of self -development ; and with
ourselves in this great matter we associate all the peo-
ples of our own hemisphere. We wish not only for the
United States but for them the fullest freedom of inde-
pendent growth and of action, for we know that through-
out this hemisphere the same aspirations are everywhere
being worked out, under diverse conditions but with the
same impidse and ultimate object.

All this is very clear to us and will, I confidently
predict, become more and more clear to the whole world
as the great processes of the future unfold themselves.
It is with a full consciousness of such principles and
such ambitions that we are asking ourselves at the pres-
ent time what our duty is with regard to the armed
force of the nation. Within a year we have witnessed
what we did not believe possible, a great European con-
flict involving many of the greatest nations of the world.
The influences of a great war are everywhere in the air.
-AJl Europe is embattled. Force everywhere speaks out
with a loud and imperious voice in a titanic struggle
of governments, and from one end of our own dear
<K)untry to the other men are asking one another what
our own force is, how far we are prepared to maintain
ourselves against any interference with our national
action or development.

In no man's mind, I am sure, is there even raised
the question of the willful use of force on our part

118 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

against any nation or any people. No matter what
military or naval force the United States might develop,
statesmen throughout the whole world might rest assured
that we were gathering that force, not for attack in any
quarter, not for aggression of any kind, not for the
satisfaction of any political or international ambition,
but merely to make sure of our own security. We have
it in mind to be prepared, not for war, but only for
defense; and with the thought constantly in our minds
that the principles we hold most dear can be achieved
by the slow processes of history only in the kindly and
wholesome atmosphere of peace, and not by the use of
hostile force. The mission of America in the world is
essentially a mission of peace and good will among men.
She has become the home and asylum of men of all
creeds and races. Within her hospitable borders they
have found homes and congenial associations and free-
dom and a wide and cordial welcome, and they have
become part of the bone and sinew and spirit of America
itself. America has been made up out of the nations
of the world and is the friend of the nations of the
world.

But we feel justified in preparing ourselves to vindi-
cate our right to independent and unmolested action
by making the force that is in us ready for asser-
tion.

And we know that we can do this in a way that will
be itself an illustration of the American spirit. In
accordance with our American traditions we want and
shall work for only an army adequate to the constant
and legitimate uses of times of international peace.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 119

But we do want to feel that there is a great body of
dtizens who have received at least the most rudimentary
and necessary forms of military training ; that they will
be ready to form themselves into a fighting force at the
call of the nation; and that the nation has the muni-
tions and supplies with which to equip them without
delay should it be necessary to call them into action.
We wish to supply them with the training they need,
and we think we can do so without calling them
at any time too long away from their civilian pur-
suits.

It is with this idea, with this conception, in mind that
the plans have been made which it will be my privilege
to lay before the Congress at its next session. That plan
calls for only such an increase in the regular Army of
the United States as experience has proved to be re-
quired for the performance of the necessary duties of
the Army in the Philippines, in Hawaii, in Porto Bico,
upon the borders of the United States, at the coast forti-
fications, and at the military posts of the interior. For
the rest, it calls for the training within the next three
years of a force of 400,000 citizen soldiers to be raised
in annual contingents of 133,000, who would be asked
to enlist for three years with the colors and three years
on furlough, but who during their three years of enlist-
ment with the colors would not be organized as a stand-
mg force but would be expected merely to undergo inten-
sive training for a very brief period of each year. Their
training would take place in immediate association with
the organized units of the regular Army. It would have
BO touch of the amateur about it, neither would it exact

120 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of the volunteers more than they could give in any one
year from their civilian pursuits.

And none of this would be done in such a way as
in the slightest degree to supersede or subordinate our
present serviceable and efficient National Guard. On
the contrary, the National Guard itself would be used as
part of the instrumentality by which training would be
given the citizens who enlisted under the new conditions,
and I should hope and expect that the legislation by
which all this would be accomplished would put the
National Guard itself upon a better and more perma-
nent footing than it has ever been before, giving it not
only the recognition which it deserves, but a more
definite support from the national government and a
more definite connection with the military organization
of the nation.

What we all wish to accomplish is that the forces
of the nation should indeed be part of the nation and
not a separate professional force, and the chief cost of
the system would not be in the enlistment or in the
training of the men, but in the providing of ample
equipment in case it should be necessary to call all forces
into the field.

Moreover, it has been American policy time out of
mind to look to the Navy as the first and chief line of
defense. The Navy of the United States is already a
very great and efficient force. Not rapidly, but slowly^
with careful attention, our naval force has been devel-
oped until the Navy of the United States stands recog-
nized as one of the most efficient and notable of the
modem time. All that is needed in order to bring it

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 121

to a point of extraordinary force and efficiency as com-
pared with the other navies of the world is that we
should hasten our pace in the policy we have long been
pursuing, and that chief of all we should have a definite
j)oli(7 of development, not made from year to year but
Hooking well into the future and planning for a definite
'^consummation. We can and should profit in all that we
^o by the experience and example that have been made
bvious to us by the military and naval events of the
ctual present. It is not merely a matter of building
'lE^attleships and cruisers and submarines, but also a mat-
-^b^r of making sure that we shall have the adequate
^^uipment of men and mimitions and supplies for the
^v^essels we build and intend to build. Part of our prob-
lezxn is the problem of what I may call the mobilization
o:f ihe resources of the nation at the proper time if it
alio-aid ever be necessary to mobilize them for national
^^^^nse. We shall study efficiency and adequate equip-
^^^^^xit as carefully as we shall study the number and
of our ships, and I believe that the plans already
X>^ made public by the Navy Department are plans
i^ch the whole nation can approve with rational en-
asm*
^o thoughtful man feels any panic haste in this mat-
• The country is not threatened from any quarter.
e stands in friendly relations with all the world. Her
^^urces are known and her self-respect and her capac-
^^^ to care for her own citizens and her own rights.
^^ere is no fear amongst us. Under the new-world
^xiditions we have become thoughtful of the things
"^hich all reasonable men consider necessary for secur-

122 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

ity and self-defense on the part of every nation con-
fronted with the great enterprise of human liberty and
independence. That is all.

Is the plan we propose sane and reasonable and
guited to the needs of the hour! Does it not conform
to the ancient traditions of America! Has any better
plan been proposed than this program that we now
place before the country? In it there is no pride of
opinion. It represents the best professional and expert
judgment of the country. But I am not so much inter-
()ited in programs as I am in safeguarding at every
coat the good faith and honor of the country. If men
differ with me in this vital matter, I shall ask them to
make it clear how far and in what way they are inter-
Oited in making the permanent interests of the country
iiafa against disturbance.

In the fulfillment of the program I propose I
ahall ask for the hearty support of the country, of the
rank and file of America, of men of all shades of politi-
cal opinion. For my position in this important matter
li different from that of the private individual who is
free to speak his own thoughts and to risk his own
opinions in this matter. We are here dealing with
things that are vital to the life of America itself. In
doing this I have tried to purge my heart of all per-
nonal and selfish motives. For the time being, I speak
AS the trustee and guardian of a nation's rights, charged
with the duty of speaking for that nation in matters
involving her sovereignty, — a nation too big and gener-
ous to be exacting and yet courageous enough to defend
its rights and the liberties of its people wherever

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 123

assailed or invaded. I would not feel that I was dis-
charging the solemn obligation I owe the country were
I not to speak in terms of the deepest solemnity of the
urgency and necessity of preparing ourselves to guard
and protect the rights and privileges of our people, our
sacred heritage of the fathers who struggled to make us
an independent nation.

The only thing within our own borders that has
given us grave concern in recent months has been that
voices have been raised in America professing to be
the voices of Americans which were not indeed and in
truth American, but which spoke alien sympathies,
which came from men who loved other countries better
than they loved America, men who were partisans of
other causes than that of America and had forgotten
that their chief and only allegiance was to the great
government under which they live. These voices have
not been many, but they have been very loud and very
clamorous. They have proceeded from a few who were
bitter and who were grievously misled. America has not
opened its doors in vain to men and women out of other
nations. The vast majority of those who have come to
iake advantage of her hospitality have united their
iBpirits with hers as well as their fortunes. These men
who speak alien sympathies are not their spokesmen but
are the spokesmen of small groups whom it is high time
ihat the nation should call to a reckoning. The chief
thing necessary in America in order that she should let
all the world know that she is prepared to maintain her
own great position is that the real voice of the nation
should sound forth unmistakably and in majestic volume,

124 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

in the deep iinisoii of a commoiiy uDhesitating national
feeling. I do not doubt that upon the first occasion,
upon the first opportunity, upon the first definite chal-
lenge, that voice will speak forth in tones which no man
can doubt and with commands which no man dare gain-
say or resist.

May I not say, while I am speaking of this, that
there is another danger that we should guard against?
We should rebuke not only manifestations of racial feel-
ing here in America where there should be none, but
also every manifestation of religious and sectarian an-
tagonism. It does not become America that within her
borders, where every man is free to follow the dictates
of his conscience and worship God as he pleases, men
should raise the cry of church against church. To do
that is to strike at the very spirit and heart of America.
We are a God-fearing people. We agree to differ about
methods of worship, but we are united in believing in
Divine Providence and in worshiping the God of
Nations. We are the champions of religious right here
and everjnvhere that it may be our privilege to give it
our countenance and support. The government is con-
scious of the obligation and the nation is conscious of
the obligation. Let no man create divisions where there
are none.

Here is the nation God has builded by our hands.
What shall we do with it? Who is there who does not
stand ready at all times to act in her behalf in a spirit
of devoted and disinterested patriotism? We are yet
only in the youth and first consciousness of our power.
The day of our country's life is still but in its fresh

MESSAGES^ ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 125

moming. Let us lift our eyes to the great tracts of
life yet to be conquered in the interests of righteous
peace. Gome, let us renew our allegiance to America,
conserve her strength in its purity, make her chief
among those who serve mankind, self -reverenced, self-
commanded, mistress of all forces of quiet counsel,
strong above all others in good wiU and the might of
invincible justice and right.

THIRD ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT

A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES

OF CONGRESS, DECEMBER 7, 1915

Gentlemen of the Congbess:

Since I last had the privilege of addressing you on
the state of the Union the war of nations on the other
side of the sea, which had then only begun to disclose
its portentous proportions, has extended its threatening
and sinister scope until it has swept within its flame
some portion of every quarter of the globe, not except-
ing our own hemisphere, has altered the whole face of
international affairs, and now presents a prospect of
reorganization and reconstruction such as statesmen and
peoples have never been called upon to attempt before.

We have stood apart, studiously neutral. It was our
manifest duty to do so. Not only did we have no part
or interest in the policies which seem to have brought
the conflict on; it was necessary, if a universal catas-
trophe was to be avoided, that a limit should be set to
the sweep of destructive war and that some part of the
great family of nations should keep the processes of
peace alive, if only to prevent collective economic ruin
and the breakdown throughout the world of the indus-
tries by which its populations are fed and sustained.
It was manifestly the duty of the self -governed nations
of this hemisphere to redress, if possible, the balance of
economic loss and confusion in the other, if they could

198

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 127

do nothing more. In the day of readjustment and re-
cuperation we earnestly hope and believe that they can
be of infinite service.

In this neutrality, to which they were bidden not
only by their separate life and their habitual detach-
ment from the politics of Europe but also by a clear
perception of international duty, the states of America
have become conscious of a new and more vital com-
munity of interest and moral partnership in affairs,
znore clearly conscious of the many common sympathies
.and interests and duties which bid them stand together.
There was a time in the early days of our own great
oiation and of the republics fighting their way to inde-
3)endence in Central and South America when the gov-
*<mment of the United States looked upon itself as in
^me sort the guardian of the republics to the south of
3ier as against any encroachments or efforts at political
-^5ontrol from the other side of the water ; felt it its duty
^*o play the part even without invitation from them;
<and I think that we can claim that the task was under-
^Aaken with a true and disinterested enthusiasm for the
zfreedom of the Americas and the unmolested self-
government of her independent peoples. But it was
<»lways difficult to maintain such a role without offense
'to the pride of the peoples whose freedom of action we
sought to protect, and without provoking serious mis-
conceptions of our motives, and every thoughtful man
of affairs must welcome the altered circumstances of
the new day in whose light we now stand, when there
is no daim of guardianship or thought of wards but,
instead, a full and honorable association as of partners

128 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

between ourselves and our neighbors, in the interest of
all America, north and south. Our concern for the inde-
pendence and prosperity of the states of Central and
South America is not altered. We retain unabated the
spirit that has inspired us throughout the whole life
of our government and which was so frankly put into
words by President Monroe. We still mean always to
make a common cause of national independence and of
political liberty in America. But that purpose is now
better understood so far as it concerns ourselves. It is
known not to be a selfish purpose. It is known to have
in it no thought of taking advantage of any govern-
ment in this hemisphere or playing its political fortunes
for our own benefit. All the governments of America
stand, so far as we are concerned, upon a footing of
genuine equality and unquestioned independence.

We have been put to the test in the case of Mexico,
and we have stood the test. Whether we have benefited
Mexico by the course we have pursued remains to be
seen. Her fortunes are in her own hands. But we have
at least proved that we will not take advantage of her
in her distress and undertake to impose upon her an
order and government of our own choosing. Liberty is
often a fierce and intractable thing, to which no bounds
can be set, and to which no bounds of a few men's
choosing ought ever to be set. Every American who
has drunk at the true f oimtains of principle and tradi-
tion must subscribe without reservation to the high doc-
trine of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which in the great
days in which our government was set up was every-
where amongst us accepted as the creed of free men.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 129

That doctrine is, **Tliat govemment is, or ought to be,
instituted for the common benefit, protection, and secur-
ity of the people, nation, or community;'' that **of all
ihe various modes and forms of government, that is the
"best which is capable of producing the greatest degree
of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured
.against the danger of maladministration ; and that, when
^^7 govemment shall be f oimd inadequate or contrary
^ these purposes, a majority of the community hath
^tn indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to
rareform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be
fudged most conducive to the public weal/' We have
-xomhesitatingly applied that heroic principle to the case
of Mexico, and now hopefully await the rebirth of the
"fcroubled Republic, which had so much of which to purge
itaself and so little sympathy from any outside quarter
ixx the radical but necessary process. We will aid and
t^efiiend Mexico, but we will not coerce her; and our
<^ovirse with regard to her ought to be sufficient proof
to all America that we seek no political suzerainty or
selfish control.

The moral is, that the states of America are not
J^ostile rivals but co-operating friends, and that their
Knowing sense of community of interest, alike in matters
Political and in matters economic, is likely to give them
^ xxew significance as factors in international affairs
^^^ in the political history of the world. It presents
^^m as in a very deep and true sense a unit in world
^flf airs, spiritual partners, standing together because
^'^'^iiiking together, quick with common sympathies and
eoinaDion ideals. Separated they are subject to all the

^.?s?/^^ FOREIGN POLICY

^ raMUt<«^l politics of a world of

..*,. i\ ^>irit and purpose they can-

. , iitiir peaceful destiny.

.^..A,\wiijsm, It has none of the spirit

.^ ill? embodiment, the effectual em-

y».r*t of law and independence and

^^lJ* of men recently met in the City

tixe invitation and as the guests of

whi>se deliberations are likely to be

, . .WL marking a memorable turning-point

. ,^a ^}i America. They were representative

,. il)t<^ several independent states of this

^ ^ iwLivi were assembled to discuss the financial

.^viciiil relations of the republics of the two

^...x v%liivrli nature and political fortune have so

^^^\ lixtked together. I earnestly recommend to

v^oskil tlie reports of their proceedings and of

aciu^ of their committees. You will get from

I viiaik* a fresh conception of the ease and intelli-

uui advantage with which Americans of both con-

^ uuiv draw together in practical co-operation and

iv ^lai I ho material foundations of this hopeful partner-

,j .? v^i interest must consist, — of how we should build

axiu M\\i of how necessary it is that we should hasten

.KU' building.

Ihort^ is, I venture to point out, an especial sig-
• luKv*"^'^^ 3^st now attaching to this whole matter of
siiawiujj the Americas together in bonds of honorable
(\4VtiuTship and mutual advantage because of the eco-
ui^iilc readjustments which the world must inevitably"^

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 181

witness within the next generation, when peace shall
have at last resimied its healthful tasks. In the per-
formance of these tasks I believe the Americas to be
destined to play their parts together. I am interested
to fix your attention on this prospect now because unless
you take it within your view and permit the full sig-
nificance of it to command your thought I cannot find
the right light in which to set forth the particular mat-
ter that lies at the very front of my whole thought as
I address you to-day. I mean national defense.

No one who really comprehends the spirit of the
great people for whom we are appointed to speak can
fail to perceive that their passion is for peace, their
genius best displayed in the practice of the arts of peace,
^reat democracies are not belligerent. They do not seek
or desire war. Their thought is of individual liberty
^LZid of the free labor that supports life and the uncen-
soxed thought that quickens it. Conquest and dominion
not in our reckoning, or agreeable to our principles,
it just because we demand unmolested development
ajGicl the undisturbed government of our own lives upon
oiix own principles of right and liberty, we resent, from
wiaatever quarter it may come, the aggression we our-
selves will not practice. We insist upon security in
pJ^osecuting our self -chosen lines of national develop-
in.eiit. We do more than that. We demand it also for
ottiers. We do not confine our enthusiasm for indi-
vifiiial liberty and free national development to the
ii^cidents and movements of affairs which affect only
ourselves. We feel it wherever there is a people that
tries to walk in these difficult paths of independence

182 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

and right. From the first we have made common cause
with all partisans of liberty on this side the sea, and
have deemed it as important that our neighbors should
be free from all outside domination as that we ourselves
should be; have set America aside as a whole for the
uses of independent nations and political freemen.

Out of such thoughts grow all our policies. We re-
gard war merely as a means of asserting the rights of
a people against aggression. And we are as fiercely
jealous of coercive or dictatorial power within our own
nation as of aggression from without. We will not
maintain a standing army except for uses which are as
necessary in times of peace as in times of war ; and we
shall always see to it that our military peace establish-
ment is no larger than is actually and continuously
needed for the uses of days in which no enemies move
against us. But we do believe in a body of free citizens
ready and suf&cient to take care of themselves and of
the governments which they have set up to serve them.
In our constitutions themselves we have commanded
that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed,'' and our confidence has been
that our safety in times of danger would lie in the rising
of the nation to take care of itself, as the farmers rose
at Lexington.

But war has never been a mere matter of men and
guns. It is a thing of disciplined might. If our citi-
zens are ever to fight effectively upon a sudden sum-
mons, they must know how modem fighting is done,
and what to do when the summons comes to render
themselves immediately available and immediately eff ec-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 133

tive. And the governmeiit must be their servant in this
matter, must supply them with the training they need
to take care of themselves and of it. The military arm
of their government, which they will not allow to direct
them, they may properly use to serve them and make
their independence secure, — ^and not their own inde-
pendence merely but the rights also of those with whom
they have made common cause, should they also be put
in jeopardy. They must be fitted to play the great role
in the world, and particularly in this hemisphere, which
they are qualified by principle and by chastened ambi-
tion to play.

It is with these ideals in mind that the plans of the
Department of War for more adequate national defense
were conceived which will be laid before you, and which
I urge you to sanction and put into efifect as soon as
they can be properly scrutinized and discussed. They
seem to me the essential first steps, and they seem to me
for the present suf&cient.

They contemplate an increase of the standing force
of the regular army from its present strength of five
thousand and twenty-three of&cers and one hundred and
two thousand nine hundred and eighty-five enlisted men
of all services to a strength of seven thousand one him-
dred and thirty-six officers and one hundred and thirty-
four thousand seven hundred and seven enlisted men,
or 141,843, all told, all services, rank and file, by the
addition of fifty-two companies of coast artillery, fifteen
companies of engineers, ten regiments of infantry, four
regiments of field artillery, and four aero squadrons,
besides seven hundred and fifty officers required for a

184 PRESroENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

great variety of extra service, especially the all-impor-
tant duty of training the citizen force of which I shall
presently speak, seven hundred and ninety-two noa-
commissioned of&cers for service in drill, recruiting and
the like, and the necessary quota of enlisted men for
the Quartermaster Corps, the Hospiiial Corps, the Ord-
nance Department, and other similar auxiliary services.
These are the additions necessary to render the army
adequate for its present duties, duties which it has to
perform not only upon our own continental coasts and
borders and at our interior army posts, but also in the
Philippines, in the Hawaiian Islands, at the Isthmus,
and in Porto Eico.

By way of making the country ready to assert some
part of its real power promptly and upon a larger scale,
should occasion arise, the plan also contemplates supple-
menting the army by a force of four hundred thousand
disciplined citizens, raised in increments of one hundred
and thirty-three thousand a year throughout a period of
three years. This it is proposed to do by a process of
enlistment under which the serviceable men of the coim-
try would be asked to bind themselves to serve with the
colors for purposes of training for short periods
throughout three years, and to come to the colors at
call at any time throughout an additional **furlough"
period of three years. This force of four himdred thou-
sand men would be provided with personal accoutrements
as fast as enlisted and their equipment for the field made
ready to be supplied at any time. They would be
assembled for training at stated intervals at convenient
places in association with suitable units of the regular

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 185

army. Their period of annual training would not neces-
sarily exceed two months in the year.

It would depend upon the patriotic feeling of the
younger men of the coimtry whether they responded to
such a call to service or not. It would depend upon the
patriotic spirit of the employers of the country whether
they made it possible for the yoimger men in their
employ to respond under favorable conditions or not.
I, for one, do not doubt the patriotic devotion either of
our young men or of those who give them employ-
ment, — those for whose benefit and protection they would
xn fact enlist. I would look forward to the success of
erixch an experiment with entire confidence.

At least so much by way of preparation for defense
ems to me to be absolutely imperative now. We can-
ot do less.

The program which wiU be laid before you by the
^S^^cretary of the Navy is similarly conceived. It in-
ves only a shortening of the time within which plans
matured shall be carried out; but it does make
e and explicit a program which has heretofore
en only implicit, held in the minds of the Commit-
on Naval Affairs and disclosed in the debates of
two Houses but nowhere formulated or formally
^epted. It seems to me very clear that it will be to the
antage of the country for the Congress to adopt a
^^^^xnprehensive plan for putting the navy upon a final
footing of strength and efficiency and to press that plan
^o completion within the next five years. We have
^l^ays looked to the navy of the coimtry as our first
*xid chief line of defense ; we have always seen it to be

136 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

OUT manifest course of prudence to be strong on the
seas. Year by year we have been creating a navy which
now ranks very high indeed among the navies of the
maritime nations. We should now definitely determine
how we shall complete what we have begun, and how
soon.

The program to be laid before you contemplates
the construction within five years of ten battleships,
six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty destroyers,
fifteen fleet submarines, eighty-five coast submarines,
four gunboats, one hospital ship, two ammunition ships,
two fuel oil ships, and one repair ship. It is proposed
that of this number we shall the first year provide for
the construction of two battleships, two battle cruisers,
three scout cruisers, fifteen destroyers, five fleet sub-
marines, twenty-five coast submarines, two gunboats,
and one hospital ship ; the second year, two battleships,
one scout cruiser, ten destroyers, four fleet submarines,
fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat, and one fuel oil
ship ; the third year, two battleships, one battle cruiser,
two scout cruisers, five destroyers, two fleet submarines,
and fifteen coast submarines; the fourth year, two bat-
tleships, two battle cruisers, two scout cruisers, ten
destroyers, two fleet submarines, flfteen coast sub-
marines, one ammunition ship, and one fuel oil ship;
and the fifth year, two battleships, one battle cruiser,
two scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet submarines,
flfteen coast submarines, one gunboat, one ammunition
ship, and one repair ship.

The Secretary of the Navy is asking also for the
immediate addition to the personnel of the navy of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 137

Beven thousand five hundred sailors, twenty-five hun-
dred apprentice seamen, and fifteen hundred marines.
This increase would be sufficient to care for the ships
which are to be completed within the fiscal year 1917
and also for the number of men which must be put in
training to man the ships which will be completed early
in 1918. It is also necessary that the number of mid-
shipmen at the Naval Academy at Annapolis should be
increased by at least three hundred in order that the
force of officers should be more rapidly added to; and
authority is asked to appoint, for engineering duties
only, approved graduates of engineering colleges, and
for service in the aviation corps a certain niunber of
men taken from civil life.

If this full program should be carried out we
should have built or building in 1921, according to the
estimates of survival and standards of classification
followed by the General Board of the Department, an
effective navy consisting of twenty-seven battleships, of
the first line, six battle cruisers, twenty-five battleships
of the second line, ten armored cruisers, thirteen scout
cruisers, five first class cruisers, three second class cruis-
ers, ten third class cruisers, one hundred and eight
destroyers, eighteen fleet submarines, one hundred and
fifty-seven coast submarines, six monitors, twenty gun-
l)oats, four supply ships, fifteen fuel ships, four trans-
3)orts, three tenders to torpedo vessels, eight vessels of
^cial types, and two ammunition ships. This would be
a navy fitted to our needs and worthy of our traditions.

But armies and instruments of war are only part
of what has to be considered if we are to provide for

188 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the supreme matter of national self-sufficiency and se-
curity in all its aspects. There are other great matters
which will be thrust upon our attention whether we will
or not. There is, for example, a very pressing question
of trade and shipping involved in this great problem of
national adequacy. It is necessary for many weighty
reasons of national efficiency and development that we
should have a great merchant marine. The great mer-
chant fleet we once used to make us rich, that great body
of sturdy sailors who used to carry our flag into every
sea, and who were the pride and often the bulwark of
the nation, we have almost driven out of existence by
inexcusable neglect and indifference and by a hopelessly
blind and provincial policy of so-called economic pro-
tection. It is high time we repaired our mistake
and resumed our commercial independence on the
seas.

For it is a question of independence^ If other
nations go to war or seek to hamper each other's
commerce, our merchants, it seems, are at their mercy,
to do with as they please. We must use their ships,
and use them as they determine. We have not ships
enough of our own. We cannot handle our own com-
merce on the seas. Our independence is provincial, and
is only on land and within our own borders. We are
not likely to be permitted to use even the ships of other
nations in rivalry of their own trade, and are without
means to extend our commerce even where the doors
are wide open and our goods desired. Such a situation
is not to be endured. It is of capital importance not
only that the United States should be its own carrier

140 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

once; done to open routes and develop opportunities
where they are as yet undeveloped; done to open the
arteries of trade where the currents have not yet learned
to run, — especially between the two American conti-
nents, where they are, singularly enough, yet to be cre-
ated and quickened; and it is evident that only the
government can imdertake such beginnings and assume
the initial financial risks. When the risk has passed
and private capital begins to find its way in sufficient
abimdance into these new channels, the government may
withdraw. But it cannot omit to begin. It should take
the first steps, and should take them at once. Our goods
must not lie piled up at our ports and stored upon side
tracks in freight cars which are daily needed on the
roads; must not be left without means of transport to
any foreign quarter. We must not await the permis-
sion of foreign ship-owners and foreign governments to
send them where we will.

With a view to meeting these pressing necessities of
our commerce and availing ourselves at the earliest pos-
sible moment of the present imparalleled opportunity of
linking the two Americas together in bonds of mutual
interest and service, an opportunity which may never
return again if we miss it now, proposals will be made
to the present Congress for the purchase or construc-
tion of ships to be owned and directed by the govern-
ment similar to those made to the last Congress, but
modified in some essential particulars. I recommend
these proposals to you for your prompt acceptance with
the more confidence because every month that has
elapsed since the former proposals were made has made

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 141

the necessity for such action more and more manifestly
imperative. That need was then foreseen; it is now
acutely felt and everywhere realized by those for whom
trade is waiting but who can find no conveyance for
their goods. I am not so much interested in the par-
ticulars of the program as I am in taking immediate
advantage of the great opportunity which awaits us
if we will but act in this emergency. In this matter,
as in all others, a spirit of common counsel should
prevail, and out of it should come an early solution of
this pressing problem.

There is another matter which seems to me to be
very intimately associated with the question of national
safety and preparation for defense. That is our policy
towards the Philippines and the people of Porto Rico.
Our treatment of them and their attitude towards us are
jcnanif estly of the first consequence in the development
our duties in the world and in getting a f re^ hand
perform those duties. We must be free from every
xiBJxmecessary burden or embarrassment; and there is no
tter way to be clear of embarrassment than to fulfill
promises and promote the interests of those depend-
t on us to the utmost. Bills for the alteration and
form of the government of the Philippines and for
ndering fuller political justice to the people of Porto
CO were submitted to the sixty-third Congress. They
be submitted also to you. I need not particularize
€ir details. You are most of you already familiar with
em. But I do recommend them to your early adop-
with the sincere conviction that there are few
^^^^casures you could adopt which would more serviceably

142 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

clear the way for the great policies by which we wish
to make good, now and always, our right to lead in
enterprises of peace and good will and economic and
political freedom.

The plans for the armed forces of the nation which
I have outlined, and for the general policy of adequate
preparation for mobilization and defense, involve of
course very large additional expenditures of money, —
expenditures which will considerably exceed the esti-
mated revenues of the government. It is made my duty
by law, whenever the estimates of expenditure exceed
the estimates of revenue, to call the attention of the
Congress to the fact and suggest any means of meeting
the deficiency that it may be wise or possible for me
to suggest. I am ready to believe that it would be my
duty to do so in any case ; and I feel particularly bound
to speak of the matter when it appears that the defi-
ciency will arise directly out of the adoption by the
Congress of measures which I myself urge it to adopt.
Allow me, therefore, to speak briefly of the present state
of the Treasury and of the fiscal problems which the
next year will probably disclose.

On the thirtieth of June last there was an available
balance in the general fund of the Treasury of $104,-
170,105.78. The total estimated receipts for the year
1916, on the assumption that the emergency revenue
measure passed by the last Congress will not be ex-
tended beyond its present limit, the thirty-first of z
December, 1915, and that the present duty of one cent^
per pound on sugar will be discontinued after the firsts
of May, 1916, will be $670,365,500. The balance o

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 143

June last and these estimated revenues come, therefore,
to a grand total of $774,535,605.78. The total estimated
disbursements for the present fiscal year, including
twenty-five millions for the Panama Canal, twelve mil-
lions for probable deficiency appropriations, and fifty
thousand dollars for miscellaneous debt redemptions,
will be $753,891,000; and the balance in the general
fund of the Treasury will be reduced to $20,644,605.78.
The emergency revenue act, if continued beyond its
present time limitation, would produce, during the half
year then remaining, about forty-one millions. The
duty of one cent per pound on sugar, if continued, would
produce during the two months of the fiscal year remain-
ing after the first of May, about fifteen millions. These
two sums, amoimting together to fifty-six millions, if
added to the revenues of the second half of the fiscal
year, would yield the Treasury at the end of the year
an available balance of $76,644,605.78.

The additional revenues required to carry out the
program of military and naval preparation of which
I have spoken, would, as at present estimated, be for
the fiscal year 1917, $93,800,000. Those figures, taken
with the figures for the present fiscal year which I have
already given, disclose our financial problem for the year
1917. Assuming that the taxes imposed by the emer-
gency revenue act and the present duty on sugar are
to be discontinued, and that the balance at the close of
the present fiscal year will be only $20,644,605.78, that
the disbursements for the Panama Canal will again be
about twenty-five millions, and that the additional ex-
penditures for the army and navy are authorized by

144 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the Congress, the deficit in the general fund of the
Treasury on the thirtieth of June, 1917, will be nearly
two hundred and thirty-five millions. To this sum at
least fifty millions should be added to represent a safe
working balance for the Treasury, and twelve millions
to include the usual deficiency estimates in 1917; and
these additions would make a total deficit of some two
hundred and ninety-seven millions. If the present taxes
should be continued throughout this year and the next,
however, there would be a balance in the Treasury of
some seventy-six and a half millions at the end of the
present fiscal year, and a deficit at the end of the next
year of only some fifty millions, or, reckoning in sixty-
two millions for deficiency appropriations and a safe
Treasury balance at the end of the year, a total deficit
of some one hundred and twelve millions. The obvious
moral of the figures is that it is a plain counsel of
prudence to continue all of the present taxes or their
equivalents, and confine ourselves to the problem of
providing one hundred and twelve millions of new rev-
enue rather than two hundred and ninety-seven millions.
How shall we obtain the new revenue? We are
frequently reminded that there are many millions of
bonds which the Treasury is authorized imder existing
law to sell to reimburse the sums paid out of current
revenues for the construction of the Panama Canal;
and it is true that bonds to the amount of approxi-
mately $222,000,000 are now available for that purpose.
Prior to 1913, $134,631,980 of these bonds had actually
been sold to recoup the expenditures at the Isthmus;
and now constitute a considerable item of the public

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 145

debt. But I, for one, do not believe that the people of
this country approve of postponing the payment of their
bills. Borrowing money is short-sighted finance. It can
be justified only when permanent things are to be accom-
plished which many generations will certainly benefit
by and which it seems hardly fair that a single genera-
tion should pay for. The objects we are now proposing
to spend money for cannot be so classified, except in the
sense that everything wisely done may be said to be
done in the interest of posterity as well as in our own.
It seems to me a clear dictate of prudent statesmanship
and frank finance that in what we are now, I hope,
about to undertake we should pay as we go. The people
of the country are entitled to know just what burdens of
taxation they are to carry, and to know from the out-
set, now. The new bills should be paid by internal
taxation.

To what sources, then, shall we turn? This is so
peculiarly a question which the gentlemen of the House
of Bepresentatives are expected imder the Constitution
to propose an answer to that you will hardly expect me
to do more than discuss it in very general terms. We
should be following an almost universal example of
modem governments if we were to draw the greater
part or even the whole of the revenues we need from
the income taxes. By somewhat lowering the present
limits of exemption and the figure at which the surtax
shall begin to be imposed, and by increasing, step by
step throughout the present graduation, the surtax
itself, the income taxes as at present apportioned would
yield sums suf&cient to balance the books of the Treasiuy

146 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

at the end of the fiscal year 1917 without anywhere
making the burden unreasonably or oppressively heavy.
The precise reckonings are fully and accurately set out
in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury which
will be immediately laid before you.

And there are many additional sources of revenue
which can justly be resorted to without hampering the
industries of the country or putting any too great charge
upon individual expenditure. A tax of one cent per
gallon on gasoline and naphtha would yield, at the
present estimated production, $10,000,000 ; a tax of fifty
cents per horse power on automobiles and internal ex-
plosion engines, $15,000,000; a stamp tax on bank
cheques, probably $18,000,000 ; a tax of twenty-five cents
per ton on pig iron, $10,000,000; a tax of twenty-five
cents per ton on fabricated iron and steel, probably
$10,000,000. In a country of great industries like this
it ought to be easy to distribute the burdens of taxa-
tion without making them anywhere bear too heavily
or too exclusively upon any one set of persons or under-
takings. What is clear is, that the industry of this gen-
eration should pay the bills of this generation.

I have spoken to you to-day, gentlemen, upon a sin-
gle theme, the thorough preparation of the nation to
care for its own security and to make sure of entire
freedom to play the impartial role in this hemisphere
and in the world which we all believe to have been provi-
dentially assigned to it. I have had in my mind no
thought of any immediate or particular danger arising
out of our relations with other nations. We are at
peace with all the nations of the world, and there is

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 147

reaBon to hope that no question in controversy between
this and other Governments will lead to any serious
breach of amicable relations, grave as some differences
of attitude and policy have been and may yet turn out
to be. I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against
our national peace and safety have been uttered within
our own borders. There are citizens of the United
States, I blush to admit, bom imder other flags but wel-
comed under our generous naturalization laws to the
full freedom and opportunity of America, who have
poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries
of our national life; who have sought to bring the
authority and good name of our Government into con-
tempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought
it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at
them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign
intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with
the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our
nation has been enriched in recent generations out of
Tirile foreign stocks; but it is great enough to have
brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it
necessary that we should promptly make use of processes
of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt dis-
temi>ers. America never witnessed anything like this
before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn
into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free
stocks such as supplied some of the best and strongest
elements of that little, but how heroic, nation that in a
high day of old staked its very life to free itself from
every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of
the older nations and set up a new standard here, — ^that

148 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

men of such origins and such free choices of allegiance
would ever turn in malign reaction against the Govern-
ment and people who had welcomed and nurtured them
and seek to make this proud country once more a hot-
bed of European passion. A little while ago such a
thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was
incredible we made no preparation for it. We would
have been almost ashamed to prepare for it, as if we
were suspicious of ourselves, our own comrades and
neighbors! But the ugly and incredible thing has actu-
ally come about and we are without adequate federal
laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at
the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so
I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor
and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of pas-
sion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They
are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the
hand of our power should close over them at once. They
have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered
into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Govern-
ment, they have sought to pry into every confidential
transaction of the Government in order to serve interests
alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things
very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which
they may be dealt with.

I wish that it could be said that only a few men,
misled by mistaken sentiments of allegiance to the gov-
ernments under which they were bom, had been guilty
of disturbing the self-possession and misrepresenting
the temper and principles of the country during these
days of terrible war, when it would seem that every man

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 149

who was truly an American would instinctively make it
his duty and his pride to keep the scales of judgment
even and prove himself a partisan of no nation but
his own. But it cannot. There are some men among
us, and many resident abroad who, though born and
bred in the United States and calling themselves Ameri-
cans, have so forgotten themselves and their honor as
citizens as to put their passionate sympathy with one
or the other side in the great European conflict above
their regard for the peace and dignity of the United
States. They also preach and practice disloyalty. No
laws, I suppose, can reach corruptions of the mind and
heart; but I should not speak of others without also
speaking of these and expressing the even deeper humili-
ation and scorn which every self-possessed and thought-
fully patriotic American must feel when he thinks of
them and of the discredit they are daily bringing
upon us.

While we speak of the preparation of the nation to
make sure of her security and her effective power we
must not fall into the patent error of supposing that her
real strength comes from armaments and mere safe-
guards of written law. It comes, of course, from her
people, their energy, their success in their undertakings^
their free opportunity to use the natural resources of
our great home land and of the lands outside our con-
tinental borders which look to us for protection, for
encouragement, and for assistance in their development ;
from the organization and freedom and vitality of our
economic life. The domestic questions which engaged
the attention of the last Congress are more vital to the

160 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

nation in this its time of test than at any other time.
We cannot adequately make ready for any trial of our
strength unless we wisely and promptly direct the force
of our laws into these all-important fields of domestic
action. A matter which it seems to me we should have
very much at heart is the creation of the right instru-
mentalities by which to mobilize our economic resources
in any time of national necessity. I take it for granted
that I do not need your authority to call into systematic
consultation with the directing officers of the army and
navy men of recognized leadership and ability from
among our citizens who are thoroughly familiar, for
example, with the transportation facilities of the coun-
try and therefore competent to advise how they may be
co-ordinated when the need arises, those who can sug-
gest the best way in which to bring about prompt co-
operation among the manufacturers of the coimtry,
should it be necessary, and those who could assist to
bring the technical skill of the coimtry to the aid of the
Government in the solution of particular problems of
defense. I only hope that if I should find it feasible
to constitute such an advisory body the Congress would
be willing to vote the small sum of money that would
be needed to defray the expenses that would probably be
necessary to give it the clerical and administrative ma-
chinery with which to do serviceable work.

What is more important is, that the industries and
resources of the country should be available and ready
for mobilization. It is the more imperatively necessary,
therefore, that we should promptly devise means for
doing what we have not yet done: that we should give

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 161

intelligent federal aid and stimulation to industrial and
vocational education, as we have long done in the large
field of our agricultural industry ; that, at the same tune
that we safeguard and conserve the natural resources
of the coimtry we should put them at the disposal of
those who will use them promptly and intelligently, as
was sought to be done in the admirable bills submitted
to the last Congress from its committees on the public
lands, bills which I earnestly recommend in principle
to your consideration; that we should put into early
operation some provision for rural credits which will
add to the extensive borrowing facilities already afforded
the farmer by the Beserve Bank Act adequate instru-
mentalities by which long credits may be obtained on
land mortgages; and that we should study more care*
fully than they have hitherto been studied the right
adaptation of our economic arrangements to changing
conditions.

Many conditions about which we have repeatedly
legislated are being altered from decade to decade, it
is evident, imder our very eyes, and are likely to change
even more rapidly and more radically in the days imme-
diately ahead of us, when peace has returned to the
world and the nations of Europe once more take up
their tasks of commerce and industry with the energy
of those who must bestir themselves to build anew.
Just what these changes will be no one can certainly
foresee or confidently predict. There are no calculable,
because no stable, elements in the problem. The most
we can do is to make certain that we have the necessary
instrumentalities of information constantly at our serv-

162 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

ice so that we may be sure that we know exactly what
we are dealing with when we come to act, if it should
be necessary to act at all. We must first certainly know
what it is that we are seeking to adapt ourselves to.
I may ask the privilege of addressing you more at
length on this important matter a little later in your
session.

In the meantime may I make this suggestion? The
transportation problem is an exceedingly serious and
pressing one in this country. There has from time to
time of late been reason to fear that our railroads would
not much longer be able to cope with it successfully, as
at present equipped and co-ordinated. I suggest that
it would be wise to provide for a commission of inquiry
to ascertain by a thorough canvass of the whole ques-
tion whether our laws as at present framed and admin-
istered are as serviceable as they might be in the solu-
tion of the problem. It is obviously a problem that
lies at the very foundation of our efficiency as a people.
Such an inquiry ought to draw out every circumstance
and opinion worth considering and we need to know
all sides of the matter if we mean to do anything in
the field of federal legislation.

No one, I am sure, would wish to take any backward
step. The regulation of the railways of the country
by federal commission has had admirable results and
has fully justified the hopes and expectations of those
by whom the policy of regulation was originally pro-
posed. The question is not what should we undo ? It is,
whether there is anything else we can do that would
supply us with effective means, in the very process of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 163

regulation, for bettering the conditions under which the
railroads are operated and for making them more useful
servants of the country as a whole. It seems to me
that it might be the part of wisdom, therefore, before
further legislation in this field is attempted, to look at
the whole problem of co-ordination and efficiency in the
full light of a fresh assessment of circumstance and
opinion, as a guide to dealing with the several parts of it.
For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is
the single thought of this message, is national efficiency
and security. We serve a great nation. We should
serve it in the spirit of its peculiar genius. It is the
genius of common men for self-government, industry,
justice, liberty, and peace. We should see to it that it
lacks no instrument, no facility or vigor of law, to make
it sufficient to play its part with energy, safety, and
assured success. In this we are no partisans but heralds
and prophets of a new age.

ADDRESS BEFORE THE PAN AMERICAN
SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS, WASHINGTON,

JANUARY 6, 1916

The Second Pan American Scientific Congress met in the City of Washington,
December 27, lOlS-January 8, 1916, and was composed of official and scientific
representatives from all of the American Republics. The First Congress had met
at Santiago, Chile, December 25, lOOS-January 5, 1909, and a resolution was
adopted then and there that the Second should convene in Washington as the
guest of the United States. The Congress was divided into nine sections dealing
with Anthropology (Section I), Astronomy, Meteorology, and Seismology (Sec-
tion II), Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Irrigation, and For-
estry (Section III), Education (Section IV), Engineering (Section V), Inter-
national Law, Public Law, and Jurisprudence (Section VI), Mining, Metal-
lurgy, Economic Geology, and Applied Chemistry (Section VII), Public Health
and Medical Science (Section VIII), and Transportation, Conunerce, Finance,
and Taxation (Section IX). The subject-matter of the various divisions waa
discussed in conference, and the resolutions adopted by the Congress embodied
in a Final Act, which, accompanied by an interpretative commentary, waa
issued in the United States in 1916.

Mr. Ambassador, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

It was a matter of sincere regret with me that I
was not in the city to extend the greetings of the Gov-
ernment to this distinguished body, and I am very
happy that I have returned in time at least to extend
to it my felicitations upon the unusual interest and
success of its proceedings. I wish that it might have
been my good f ortime to be present at the sessions and
instructed by the papers that were read. I have some-
what become inured to scientific papers in the course
of a long experience, but I have never ceased to be
instructed and to enjoy them.

The sessions of this congress have been looked for-
ward to with the greatest interest throughout this coim-

154

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 155

try, because there is no more certain evidence of intel-
lectual life than the desire of men of all nations to share
their thoughts with one another.

I have been told so much about the proceedings of
this congress that I feel that I can congratulate you
upon the increasing sense of comradeship and intimate
intercourse which has marked its sessions from day to
day; and it is a very happy circumstance in our view
that this, perhaps the most vital and successful of the
meetings of this congress, should have occurred in the
Capital of our own country, because we should wish to
regard this as the universal place where ideas worth
while are exchanged and shared. The drawing together
of the Americas, ladies and gentlemen, has long been
dreamed of and desired. It is a matter of peculiar
gratification, therefore, to see this great thing happen;
to see the Americas drawing together, and not drawing
together upon any insubstantial foundation of mere
sentiment.

After all, even friendship must be based upon a per-
ception of common sympathies, of common interests, of
common ideals, and of common purposes. Men cannot
be £riends unless they intend the same things, and the
Americas have more and more realized that in all essen-
tial particulars they intend the same thing with regard
to their thought and their life and their activities. To be
privileged, therefore, to see this drawing together in
friendship and communion based upon these solid foun-
dations affords everyone who looks on with open eyes
peculiar satisfaction and joy; and it has seemed to me
that the language of science, the language of impersonal

166 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

thought, the language of those who think, not along the
lines of individual interest but along what are intended
to be the direct and searching lines of truth itself, was
a very fortunate language in which to express this com-
munity of interest and of sympathy. Science affords
an international language just as commerce also affords
a universal language, because in each instance there is
a universal purpose, a universal general plan of action,
and it is a pleasing thought to those who have had
something to do with scholarship that scholars have had
a great deal to do with sowing the seeds of friendship
between nation and nation. Truth recognizes no national
boundaries. Truth permits no racial prejudices; and
when men come to know each other and to recognize
equal intellectual strength and equal intellectual sin-
cerity and a common intellectual purpose some of the
best f oimdations of friendship are already laid.

But, ladies and gentlemen, our thought cannot pause
at the artificial boundaries of the fields of science and
of commerce. All boimdaries that divide life into sec-
tions and interests are artificial, because life is all of a
piece. You cannot treat part of it without by implica-
tion and indirection treating all of it, and the field of
science is not to be distinguished from the field of life
any more than the field of commerce is to be distin-
guished from the general field of life. No one who
reflects upon the progress of science or the spread of
the arts of peace or the extension and perfection of any
of the practical arts of life can fail to see that there is
only one atmosphere that these things can breathe, and
that is an atmosphere of mutual confidence and of peace

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 167

and of ordered political life among the nations. Amidst
war and revolution even the voice of science must for
the most part be silent, and revolution tears up the very
roots of everything that makes life go steadily forward
and the light grow from generation to generation. For
nothing stirs passion like political disturbance, and pas-
sion is the enemy of truth.

These things were realized with peculiar vividness
and said with unusual eloquence in a recent confer-
ence held in this city for the purpose of considering
the financial relations between the two continents of
America, because it was perceived that financiers can
do nothing without the co-operation of governments,
and that if merchants would deal with one another,
laws must agree with one another — ^that you cannot
make laws vary without making them contradict, and
that amidst contradictory laws the easy flow of com-
mercial intercourse is impossible, and that, therefore,
a financial congress naturally led to all the inferences
of politics. For politics I conceive to be nothing more
than the science of the ordered progress of society
along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience
to itself. I have never in my own mind admitted the
distinction between the other departments of life and
politics. Some people devote themselves so exclusively
to politics that they forget there is any other part of
life, and so soon as they do they become that thing
which is described as a **mere politician.** Statesman-
ship begins where these connections so unhappily lost
are re-established. The statesman stands in the midst
of life to interpret life in political action.

168 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

The conference to which I have referred marked
the consciousness of the two AmericaB that economi-
cally they are very dependent upon one another, that
they have a great deal that it is very desirable they
should exchange and share with one another, that they
have kept unnaturally and unfortunately separated and
apart when they had a manifest and obvious community
of interest; and the object of that conference was to
ascertain the practical means by which the commercial
and practical intercourse of the two continents could
be quickened and facilitated. And where events move
statesmen, if they be not indifferent or be not asleep,
must think and act.

For my own part I congratulate myself upon living
in a time when these things, always susceptible of
intellectual demonstration, have begun to be very widely
and universally appreciated and when the statesmen of
the two American continents have more and more come
into candid, trustful, mutual conference, comparing
views as to the practical and friendly way of helping
one another and of setting forward every handsome
enterprise on this side of the Atlantic.

But these gentlemen have not conferred without
realizing that back of all the material community of
interest of which I have spoken there lies and must lie
a community of political interest. I have been told a
very interesting fact — ^I hope it is true — ^that while this
Congress has been discussing science it has been in
spite of itself led into the feeling that behind the science
there was some inference with regard to politics, and
that if the Americas were to be united in thought they

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 159

must in some degree sympathetically be united in action.
But these statesmen who have been conferring from
month to month in Washington have come to realize
that back of the commimity of material interest there
is a community of political interest.

I hope I can make clear to you in what sense I use
these words. I do not mean a mere partnership in the
things that are expedient. I mean what I was trying
to indicate a few moments ago, that you cannot separate
politics from these things, that you cannot have real
intercourse of any kind amidst political jealousies, which
is only another way of saying that you cannot commune
unless you are friends, and that friendship is based
upon your political relations with each other perhaps
more than upon any other kind of relationship between
nations. If nations are politically suspicious of one
another, all their intercourse is embarrassed. That is
the reason, I take it, if it be true, as I hope it is, that
your thoughts even during this Congress, though the
questions you are called upon to consider are appar-
ently so foreign to politics, have again and again been
drawn back to the political inferences. The object of
American statesmanship on the two continents is to
see to it that American friendship is founded on a
rock.

The Monroe doctrine was proclaimed by the United
States on her own authority. It always has been main-
tained, and always will be maintained, upon her own
responsibility. But the Monroe doctrine demanded
merely that European Governments should not attempt
to extend their political systems to this side of the

160 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which the United
States intended to make of her power on this side of
the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but
there was no promise in it of what America was going to
do with the implied and partial protectorate which she
apparently was trying to set up on this side of the
water; and I believe you will sustain me in the state-
ment that it has been fears and suspicions on this score
which have hitherto prevented the greater intimacy and
confidence and trust between the Americas. The States
of America have not been certain what the United
States would do with her power. That doubt must be
removed. And latterly there has been a very frank
interchange of views between the authorities in Wash-
ington and those who represented the other States of
this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and
hopeful, because based upon an increasingly sure appre-
ciation of the spirit in which they were undertaken.
These gentlemen have seen that if America is to
come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a
world of peace and order, she must establish the foun-
dations of amity so that no one will hereafter doubt
them.

I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished.
These conferences have enabled me to foresee how it
will be accomplished. It will be accomplished in the
first place by the States of America uniting in guar-
anteeing to each other absolutely political independence
and territorial integrity. In the second place, and as
a necessary corollary to that, guaranteeing the agree-
ment to settle all pending boundary disputes as soon

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 161

as possible and by amicable process ; by agreeing that all
disputes among themselves, should they unhappily arise,
will be handled by patient, impartial investigation, and
settled by arbitration; and the agreement necessary to
the peace of the Americas, that no State of either con-
tinent will permit revolutionary expeditions against
another State to be fitted out on its territory, and that
they will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of
war for the purpose of supplying revolutionists against
neighboring governments.

Tou see what our thought is, gentlemen, not only
the international peace of America but the domestic
peace of America. If American States are constantly
in ferment, if any of them are constantly in ferment,
there will be a standing threat to their relations with
one another. It is just as much to our interest to assist
each other to the orderly processes within our own
borders as it is to orderly processes in our controver-
sies with one another. These are very practical sugges-
tions which have sprung up in the minds of thoughtful
men, and I, for my part, believe that they are going to
lead the way to something that America has prayed for
for many a generation. For they are based, in the first
place, so far as the stronger States are concerned, upon
the handsome principle of self-restraint and respect for
the rights of everybody. They are based upon the prin-
ciples of absolute political equality among the States,
equality of right, not equality of indulgence. They are
based, in short, upon the solid eternal foundations of
justice and humanity. No man can turn away from
these things without turning away from the hope of

162 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the world. These are things, ladies and gentlemen, for
which the world has hoped and waited with prayerful
heart. God grant that it may be granted to America
to lift this light on high for the illumination of the
world.

THE WORLD WAR AND AMERICAN

PREPAREDNESS

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND,

OHIO, JANUARY 29, 1916

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens:

I esteein it a real privilege to be in Cleveland again
and to address you upon the serious questions of public
policy which now confront us. I have not given my-
self this sort of pleasure very often since I have been
President, for I hope that you have observed what
my conception of the office of President is. I do not
believe that, ordinarily speaking, it is a speech-making
office. I have found the exactions of it such that it
was absolutely necessary for me to remain constantly
in touch with the daily changes of public business,
and you so arranged it that I should be President at
a time when there was a great deal of public business
to remain in touch with. But the times are such,
gentlemen, that it is necessary that we should take
common counsel together regarding them.

I suppose that this country has never foimd itself
before in so singular a position. The present situa-
tion of the world would, only a twelvemonth ago, even
after the European war had started, have seemed in-
credible, and yet now the things that no man antici-
pated have happened. The titanic struggle continues.
The difficulties of the world *s affairs accumulate. It

163

164 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

was, of course, evident that this was taking place long
before the present session of Congress assembled, but
only since the Congress assembled has it been possible
to consider what we ought to do in the new circum-
stances of the times. Congress can not know what to
do unless the Nation knows what to do, and it seemed
to me not only my privilege but my duty to go out
and inform my fellow countrymen just what I under-
stood the present situation to be.

What are the elements of the case? In the first
place, and most obviously, two-thirds of the world are
at war. It is not merely a European struggle; nations
in the Orient have become involved, as well as nations
in the west, and everywhere there seems to be creeping
even upon the nations disengaged the spirit and the
threat of war. All the world outside of America is
on fire.

Do you wonder that men's imaginations take color
from the situation? Do you wonder that there is a
great reaction against war? Do you wonder that the
passion for peace grows stronger as the spectacle grows
more tremendous and more overwhelming? Do you
wonder, on the other hand, that men's sympathies be-
come deeply engaged on the one side or the other?
For no small things are happening. This is a struggle
which will determine the history of the world, I dare
say, for more than a century to come. The world will
never be the same again after this war is over. The
change may be for weal or it may be for woe, but it
will be fimdamental and tremendous.

And in the meantime we, the people of the United

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 166

States, are the one great disengaged power, the one
neutral power, finding it exceedingly difficult to be
neutral, because, like men everywhere else, we are
human; we have the deep passions of mankind in us;
we have sympathies that are as easily stirred as the
sympathies of any other people ; we have interests which
we see being drawn slowly into the maelstrom of this
tremendous upheaval. It is very difficult for us to hold
off and look with cool judgment upon such stupendous
matters.

And yet we have held off. It has not been easy
for the Government at Washington to avoid the en-
tanglements which seemed to beset it on every side.
It has needed a great deal of watchfulness and an
unremitting patience to do so, but all the while no
American could fail to be aware that America did not
wish to become engaged, that she wished to hold apart ;
not because she did not perceive the issues of the
struggle, but because she thought her duties to be the
duties of peace and of separate action. And all the
while the nations themselves that were engaged seemed
to be looking to us for some sort of action, not hostile
in character but sympathetic in character. Hardly a
single thing has occurred in Europe which has in any
degree shocked the sensibilities of mankind that the
Government of the United States has not been called
upon by the one side or the other to protest and inter-
vene with its moral influence, if not with its physical
force. It is as if we were the great audience before
whom this stupendous drama is being played out, and
we are asked to comment upon the turns and crises

166 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of the plot. And not only are we the audience, and
challenged to be the umpire so far as the opinion of
the world is concerned, but all the while our own life
touches these matters at many points of vital contact.

The United States is trying to keep up the processes
of peaceful commerce while all the world is at war
and while all the world is in need of the essential
things which the United States produces, and yet by
an oversight for which it is difficult to forgive our-
selves we did not provide ourselves when there was
proper peace and opportunity with a mercantile marine,
by means of which we could carry the commerce of
the world without the interference of the motives of
other nations which might be engaged in controversy
not our own; and so the carrying trade of the world
is for the iftpst part in the hands of the nations now
embroiled in this great struggle. Americans have gone
to all quarters of the world, Americans are serving
the business of the world in every part of it, and every
one of these men when his affairs touch the regions
that are on fire is our ward, and we must see to his
rights and that they are respected. Do you not see
how all the sensitive places of our life touch these
great disturbances?

Now in the midst of all this, what is it that we
are called on to do as a nation? I suppose that from
the first America has had one peculiar and particular
mission in the world. Other nations have grown rich,
my fellow citizens, other nations have been as powerful
as we in material resources in comparison with the
other nations of the world, other nations have built up

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 167

empires and exercised dominion; we are not peculiar
in any of these things, but we are peculiar in this,
that from the first we have dedicated our force to the
service of justice and righteousness and peace. We
have said, **Our chief interest is not in the rights of
property but in the rights of men; our chief interest
is in the spirits of men that they might be free, that
they might enjoy their lives unmolested so long as
they observed the just rules of the game, that they
might deal with their fellow-men with their heads
erect, the subjects and servants of no man ; the servants
only of the principles upon which their lives rested.''
And America has done more than care for her own
people and think of her own fortimes in these great
matters. She has said ever since the time of President
Monroe that she was the champion of the freedom and
the separate sovereignty of peoples throughout the
Western Hemisphere. She is trustee for these ideals
and she is pledged, deeply and permanently pledged,
to keep these momentous promises.

She not only, therefore, must play her part in
keeping this conflagration from spreading to the people
of the United States; she must also keep this con-
flagration from spreading on this side of the sea.
These are matters in which our very life and our
whole pride are embedded and rooted, and we can
never draw back from them. And I, my fellow citi-
zens, because of the extraordinary office with which
you have intrusted me, must, whether I will or not,
be your responsible spokesman in these great matters.
It is my duty, therefore, when impressions are deeply

168 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

borne in upon me with regard to the national welfare
to speak to you with the utmost frankness about them,
and that is the errand upon which I have come away
from Washington.

For my own part, I am sorry that these things fall
within the year of a national political campaign. They
ought to have nothing whatever to do with politics.
The man who brings partisan feeling into these matters
and seeks partisan advantage by means of them is
imworthy of your confidence. I am sorry that upon
the eve of a campaign we should be obliged to discuss
these things, for fear they might run over into the
campaign and seem to constitute a part of it. Let us
forget that this is a year of national elections. That
is neither here nor there. The thing to do now is for
all men of all parties to think along the same lines
and do the same things and forget every difference
that may have divided them.

And what ought they to do? In the first place,
they ought to tell the truth. There have been some
extraordinary exaggerations both of the military weak-
ness and the military strength of this country. Some
men tell you that we have no means of defense and
others tell you that we have sufficient means of defense,
and neither statement is true. Take, for example, the
matter of our coast defenses. It is obvious to every
man that they are of the most vital importance to
the country. Such coast defenses as we have are strong
and admirable, but we have not got coast defenses
in enough places. Their quality is admirable, but their
quantity is insufficient. The military authorities of

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 169

tMs country have not been negligent ; they have sought
adequate appropriations from Congress, and in most
instances have obtained them, so far as we saw the
work in hand that it was necessary to do, and the
work that they have done in the use of these appropria-
tions has been admirable and skillful work. Do not
let anybody deceive you into supposing that the Army
of the United States, so far as it has had opportunity,
is in any degree imworthy of your confidence.

And the Navy of the United States. You have
been told that it is the second in strength in the world.
I am sorry to say that experts do not agree with those
who tell you that. Beckoning by its actual strength,
I believe it to be one of the most efficient navies in
the world, but in strength it ranks fourth, not second.
You must reckon with the fact that it is necessary
that that should be our first arm of defense, and you
ought to insist that everything should be done that
it is possible for us to do to bring the Navy up to an
adequate standard of strength and efficiency.

Where we are chiefly lacking in preparation is on
land and in the number of men who are ready to fight.
Not the number of fighting men, but the number of
men who are ready to fight. Some men are bom
troublesome, some men have trouble thrust upon them,
and other men acquire trouble. I think I belong to
the second class. But the characteristic desire of
America is not that she should have a great body of
men whose chief business is to fight, but a great body
of men who know how to fight and are ready to fight
when anything that is dear to the Nation is threatened.

170 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

You might have what we have, millions of men who
had never handled arms of war, who are mere material
for shot and powder if you put them in the field, and
America would be ashamed of the inefficiency of calling
such men to defend the Nation. What we want is to
associate in training with the Army of the United
States men who will volunteer for a sufficient length
of time every year to get a rudimentary acquaintance
with arms, a rudimentary skill in handling them, a
rudimentary acquaintance with camp life, a rudi-
mentary acquaintance with military drill and discipline ;
and we ought to see to it that we have men of that
sort in sufficient number to constitute an initial
army when we need an army for the defense of the
country.

I have heard it stated that there are probably sev-
eral million men in this country who have received
a sufficient amount of military drill either here or in
the countries in which they were bom and from which
they have come to us. Perhaps there are, nobody
knows, because there is no means of counting them;
but if there are so many, they are not obliged to come
at our call ; we do not know who they are. That is not
military preparation. Military preparation consists in
the existence of such a body of men known to the
Federal authorities, organized provisionally by the Fed-
eral authorities, and subject by their own choice and
will to the immediate call of the Federal authorities.

We have no such body of men in the United States
except the National Guard. Now, I have a very great
respect for the National Guard. I have been asso-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 171

ciated with one section of that guard in one of the
great States of the Union, and I know the character
of the ofl&cers and the quality of the men, and I would
trust them unhesitatingly both for skill and for effi-
ciency, but the whole National Guard of the United
States falls short of 130,000 men. It is characterized
by a very great variety of discipline and efficiency as
between State and State, and it is by the Constitution
itself put under authority of more than two score
State executives. The President of the United States
has not the right to call on these men except in the
case of actual invasion, and, therefore, no matter how
skillful they are, no matter how ready they are, they
are not the instruments for immediate National use.
I believe that the Congress of the United States ought
to do, and that it will do, a great deal more for the
National Guard than it ever has done, and everything
ought to be done to make it a model military arm.

But that is not the arm that we are immediately
interested in. We are interested in making certain
that there are men all over the United States prepared,
equipped, and ready to go out at the call of the National
Government upon the shortest possible notice. You
will ask me, **Why do you say the shortest possible
notice?'' Because, gentlemen, let me tell you very
solemnly you can not afford to postpone this thing.
I do not know what a single day may bring forth.
I do not wish to leave you with the impression that I
am thinking of some particular danger ; I merely want
to leave you with this solemn impression, that I know
that we are daily treading amidst the most intricate

172 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

dangers, and that the dangers that we are treading
amongst are not of our making and are not under our
control, and that no man in the United States knows
what a single week or a single day or a single hour
may bring forth. These are solemn things to say to
you but I would be unworthy of my office if I did not
come out and tell you with absolute frankness just
exactly what I understand the situation to be.

I do not wish to hurry the Congress of the United
States, These things are too important to be put
through without very thorough sifting and debate and
I am not in the least jealous of any of the searching
processes of discussion. That is what free people are
for, to understand what they are about and to do what
they wish to do only if they understand what they are
about. But it is impossible to discuss the details of
plans in great bodies, unorganized bodies, of men like
this audience, for example. All that I can do in this
presence is to tell you what I know of the necessities
of the case, and to ask you to stand back of the execu-
tive authorities of the United States in urging upon
those who make our laws as early and effective action
as possible.

America is not afraid of anybody, I know that I
express your feeling and the feeling of all our fellow
citizens when I say that the only thing I am afraid of
is not being ready to perform my duty. I am afraid
of the danger of shame; I am afraid of the danger
of inadequacy; I am afraid of the danger of not
being able to express the great character of this
country with tremendous might and effectiveness when-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 178

ever we are called upon to act in the field of the
world's affairs.

For it is character we are going to express, not
power merely. The United States is not in love with
the aggressive use of power. It despises the aggressive
use of power. There is not a foot of territory belong-
ing to any other nation which this Nation covets or
desires. There is not a privilege which we ourselves
enjoy that we would dream of denying any other na-
tion in the world. If there is one thing that the
American people love and believe in more than another
it is peace and all the handsome things that belong to
peace. I hope that you will bear me out in saying
that I have proved that I am a partisan of peace.
I would be ashamed to be belligerent and impatient
when the fortunes of my whole country and the happi-
ness of all my fellow countrymen were involved. But
I know that peace is not always within the choice of
the Nation, and I want to remind you, and remind
you very solemnly, of the double obligation you have
laid upon me. I know you have laid it upon me be-
cause I am constantly reminded of it in conversation,
by letter, in editorial, by means of every voice that
comes to me out of the body of the Nation. You have
laid upon me this double obligation: **We are relying
upon you, Mr. President, to keep us out of this war,
but we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep
the honor of the Nation unstained.''

Do you not see that a time may come when it is
impossible to do both of these things? Do you not
see that if I am to guard the honor of the Nation,

174 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

I am not protecting it against itself, for we are not
going to do anything to stain the honor of our own
country. I am protecting it against things that I can
not control, the action of others. And where the action
of others may bring us I can not foretell. You may
count upon my heart and resolution to keep you out
of the war, but you must be ready if it is necessary
that I should maintain your honor. That is the only
thing a real man loves about himself. Some men who
are not real men love other things about themselves,
but the real man believes that his honor is dearer
than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put
together, and the Nation's honor is dearer than the
Nation's comfort and the Nation's peace and the Na-
tion's life itself. So that we must know what we have
thrown into the balance; we must know the infinite
issues which are impending every day of the year, and
when we go to bed at night and when we rise in the
morning, and at every interval of the rush of business,
we must remind ourselves that we are part of a great
body politic in which are vested some of the highest
hopes of the human race.

Why is it that all nations turn to us with the in-
stinctive feeling that if anything touches humanity it
touches us? Because it knows that ever since we were
bom as a Nation we have undertaken to be the cham-
pions of humanity and of the rights of men. Without
that ideal there would be nothing that would distinguish
America from her predecessors in the history of nations.
Why is it that men who loved liberty have crowded to
these shores? Why is it that we greet them as they

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 176

enter the great harbor at New York with that majestic
Statue of Liberty holding up a torch whose visionary
beams are meant to spread abroad over the waters of
the world, and to say to all men, **Come to America
where mankind is free and where we love all the works
of righteousness and of peace."

LETTER TO SENATOR STONE, FEBRUARY
24, 1916, IN REPLY TO A LETTER OF

THE SAME DATE

The right of AmericanB to travel upon British passenger steamers going
to and f ron* Europe was admitted by the authorities and people of the United
States, but the expediency of the exercise of the right was doubted by some
in view of the danger to which ships were exposed in that part of the high seas
surrounding Grieat Britain which Germany, on February 4, 1915, had declared
to be a war zone, and the waters of which were infested with its submarines
attacking indiscriminately enemy or neutral ships, or enemy ships with neutral
persons and cargo aboard. Senator William J. Stone, Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Affairs, addressed a letter to the President on thia
subject dated February 24, 1916. In reply to this communication. President
Wilson wrote the following letter.

My deab Senator:

I very warmly appreciate your kind and frank letter
of to-day, and feel that it calls for an equally frank
reply-
Yon are right in assuming that I shall do everything
in my power to keep the United States out of war, I
think the country will feel no uneasiness about my
course in that respect. Through many anxious months
I have striven for that object, amid difficulties more
manifold than can have been apparent upon the sur-
face, and so far I have succeeded, I do not doubt that
I shall continue to succeed. The course which the Cen-
tral European powers have announced their intention
of following in the future with regard to undersea war-
fare seems for the moment to threaten insuperable ob-
stacles, but its apparent meaning is so manifestly incon-

17«

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 177

sistent with explicit assurances recently given ns by
those powers with regard to their treatment of mer-
chant vessels on the high seas that I must believe that
explanations will presently ensue which will put a dif-
ferent aspect upon it. We have had no reason to ques-
tion their good faith or their fidelity to their promises
in the past, and I for one feel confident that we shall
have none in the future.

But in any event our duty is clear. No nation, no
group of nations, has the right, while war is in progress,
to alter or disregard the principles which all nations
have agreed upon in mitigation of the horrors and suf-
ferings of war ; and if the clear rights of American citi-
zens should very unhappily be abridged or denied by
any such action, we should, it seems to me, have in
honor no choice as to what our own course should be.

For my own part, I cannot consent to any abridg-
ment of the rights of American citizens in any respect.
The honor and self-respect of the Nation is involved.
We covet peace, and shall preserve it at any cost but
the loss of honor. To forbid our people to exercise their
rights for fear we might be called upon to vindicate
them would be a deep humiliation indeed. It would be
an implicit, all but an explicit, acquiescence in the vio-
lation of the rights of mankind everywhere and of what-
ever nation or allegiance. It would be a deliberate abdi-
cation of our hitherto proud position as spokesman,
even amid the turmoil of war, for the law and the right.
It would make everything this Government has at-
tempted and everything that it has accomplished during
this terrible struggle of nations meaningless and futile.

178 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

It is important to reflect that if in this instance we
allowed expediency to take the place of principle the
door would inevitably be opened to still further conces-
sions. Once accept a single abatement of right, and
many other humiliations would certainly follow, and the
whole fine fabric of international law might crumble
under our hands piece by piece. What we are contend-
ing for in this matter is of the very essence of the
things that have made America a sovereign nation. She
cannot yield them without conceding her own impotency
as a Nation and making virtual surrerder of her inde-
pendent position among the nations of the world.

I am speaking, my dear Senator, in deep solemnity,
without heat, with a clear consciousness of the high
responsibilities of my office and as your sincere and
devoted friend. If we should unhappily differ, we shall
differ as friends, but where issues so momentous as
these are involved we must, just because we are friends,
speak our minds without reservation.

Faithfully yours,

.WOODROW WlU30N.

LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE POU,

FEBRUARY 29, 1916

A reBolution was introduced in the Home of BeprettntatiTes on Febnuury
22, 1916, requesting the President to ask all ABtricana to refrain from
traveling upon belligerent, that is to say British merebant ahipa, and
warning them that they did so at their own peril and that, by doing so, they
forfeited the protection of the United States.* The passage of such a resolution
would have embarrassed the Administration in its negotiations with Germany,
which denied this right to Americans; and a very considerable vote for this
resolution would have shown a division on this subject and would have been
imfortunate, as indicating a division of opinion on foreign policy, in which
and about which the American people should be a unit. Therefore the President
wrote the following letter to bring the matter to the test of a vote in the
Congress.

My dear Mr. Pou:

Inasmuch as I learn that Mr. Henry, the chairman
of the Committee on Rules, is absent in Texas, I take
the liberty of calling your attention, as ranking mem-
ber of the committee, to a matter of grave ooncem to
the country which can, I believe, be handled, under the
rules of the House, only by that committee.

The report that there are divided counsels in Con-
gress in regard to the foreign policy of the Qovemment
is being made industrious use of in foreign capitals. I
believe that report to be false, but so long as it is any-
where credited it cannot fail to do the greatest harm
and expose the country to the most serious risks. I
therefore feel justified in asking that your committee
will permit me to urge an early vote upon the resolu-
tions with regard to travel on armed merchantmen

' On this subject see the memorandimi transmitted to the Committee on For-
eign Affairs, House of Representatives, March 4, 1910. Appendix, pp. 411-424.

179

180 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

which have recently been so much talked about, in
order that there may be afforded an immediate oppor-
tunity for full public discussion and action upon them
and that all doubts and conjectures may be swept away
and our foreign relations once more cleared of damag-
ing misunderstandings.

The matter is of so grave importance and lies so
clearly within the field of Executive initiative that I
venture to hope that your committee will not think that
I am taking an unwarranted liberty in making this
suggestion as to the business of the House ; and I very
earnestly commend it to their immediate consideration.
Cordially and sincerely, yours,

WooDROw Wilson.

ADDRESS ON GERMAN SUBMARINE WAR-
FARE, DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES-
SION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF
CONGRESS, APRIL 19, 1916

Gentlemen of the Congress:

A situation has arisen in the foreign relations of the
country of which it is my plain duty to inform you
very frankly.

It wiU be recalled that in February, 1915, the Im-
perial German Government announced its intention to
treat the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ire-
land as embraced within the seat of war and to destroy
aU merchant ships owned by its enemies that might be
found within any part of that portion of the high seas,
and that it warned all vessels, of neutral as well as of
belligerent ownership, to keep out of the waters it had
thus proscribed or else enter them at their peril. The
Government of the United States earnestly protested.
It took the position that such a policy could not be
pursued without the practical certainty of gross and
palpable violations of the law of nations, particularly if
submarine craft were to be employed as its instruments^
inasmuch as the rules prescribed by that law, rules
founded upon principles of humanity and established
for the protection of the lives of non-combatants at sea^
could not in the nature of the case be observed by such
vessels. It based its protest on the ground that persons
of neutral nationality and vessels of neutral ownership
would be exposed to extreme and intolerable risks, and

181

182 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

that no right to close any part of the high seas against
their use or to expose them to such risks could law-
fully be asserted by any belligerent government. The
law of nations in these matters, upon which the Gov-
. ernment of the United States based its protest, is not
of recent origin or founded upon merely arbitrary prin-
ciples set up by convention. It is based, on the con-
trary, upon manifest and imperative principles of
humanity and has long been established with the ap-
proval and by the express assent of all civilized nations.

Notwithstanding the earnest protest of our Govern-
ment, the Imperial German Government at once pro-
ceeded to carry out the policy it had announced. It ex-
pressed the hope that the dangers involved, at any rate
the dangers to neutral vessels, would be reduced to a
TninimuTn by the instructions which it had issued to its
submarine commanders, and assured the Government of
the United States that it would take every possible pre-
caution both to respect the rights of neutrals and to
safeguard the lives of non-combatants.

What has actually happened in the year which has
since elapsed has shown that those hopes were not justi-
fied, those assurances insusceptible of being fulfilled.
In pursuance of the policy of submarine warfare against
the commerce of its adversaries, thus announced and
entered upon by the Imperial German Government in
despite of the solemn protest of this Government, the
commanders of German undersea vessels have attacked
merchant ships with greater and greater activity, not
only upon the high seas surrounding Great Britain and
Ireland but wherever they could encounter them, in a

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 183

way that has grown more and more ruthless, more and
more indiscriminate as the months have gone by, less
and less observant of restraints of any kind; and have
delivered their attacks without compunction against
vessels of every nationality and bound upon every sort
of errand. Vessels of neutral ownership, even vessels
of neutral ownership bound from neutral port to neu-
tral port, have been destroyed along with vessels of bel-
ligerent ownership in constantly increasing niunbers.
Sometimes the merchantman attacked has been warned
and summoned to surrender before being fired on or
torpedoed; sometimes passengers or crews have been
vouchsafed the poor security of being allowed to take
to the ship's boats before she was sent to the bottom.
But again and again no warning has been given, no
escape even to the ship's boats allowed to those on
board. What this Government foresaw must happen
has happened. Tragedy has followed tragedy on the
seas in such fashion, with such attendant circumstances,
as to make it grossly evident that warfare of such a
sort, if warfare it be, cannot be carried on without the
most palpable violation of the dictates alike of right and
of humanity. Whatever the disposition and intention of
the Imperial German Government, it has manifestly
proved impossible for it to keep such methods of attack
upon the commerce of its enemies within the bounds
set by either the reason or the heart of mankind.

In February of the present year the Imperial Ger-
man Government informed this Government and the
other neutral governments of the world that it had
reason to believe that the Government of Great Britain

184 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

had armed all merchant vessels of British ownership
and had given them secret orders to attack any sub-
marine of the enemy they might encounter upon the
seas, and that the Imperial German Government felt
justified in the circimastances in treating all armed mer-
chantmen of belligerent ownership as auxiliary vessels
of war, which it would have the right to destroy with-
out warning. The law of nations has long recognized
the right of merchantmen to carry arms for protection
and to use them to repel attack, though to use them,
in such circumstances, at their own risk; but the Im-
perial German Government claimed the right to set
these understandings aside in circumstances which it
deemed extraordinary. Even the terms in which it
annoimced its purpose thus still further to relax the
restraints it had previously professed its willingness
and desire to put upon the operations of its submarines
carried the plain implication that at least vessels which
were not armed would still be exempt from destruction
without warning and that personal safety would be
accorded their passengers and crews; but even that
limitation, if it was ever practicable to observe it, has
in fact constituted no check at all upon the destruction
of ships of every sort.

Again and again the Imperial German Government
has given this Government its solemn assurances that
at least passenger ships would not be thus dealt with,
and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea
commanders to disregard those assiu-ances with entire
impunity. Great liners like the Lusitania and the
Arabic and mere ferryboats like the Sussex have been

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 186

attacked without a moment's warning, sometimes before
they had even become aware that they were in the
presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives
of non-combatants, passengers and crew, have been sac-
rificed wholesale, in a manner which the Government of
the United States cannot but regard as wanton and
without the slightest color of justification. No limit of
any kind has in fact been set to the indiscriminate pur-
suit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and
nationalities within the waters, constantly extending in
area, where these operations have been carried on; and
the roll of Americans who have lost their lives on ships
thus attacked and destroyed has grown month by month
until the ominous toll has mounted into the himdreds.
One of the latest and most shocking instances of this
method of warfare was that of the destruction of the
French cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand
forth, as the sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as
80 singularly tragical and imjustifiable as to constitute
a truly terrible example of the inhumanity of submarine
warfare as the commanders of German vessels have for
the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this in-
stance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal by
the German Government, some evidence of criminal mis-
take or willful disobedience on the part of the com-
mander of the vessel that fired the torpedo might be
sought or entertained; but unhappily it does not stand
^one. Recent events make the conclusion inevitable
t:hat it is only one instance, even though it be one of the
imost extreme and distressing instances, of the spirit
and method of warfare which the Imperial German

186 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Government has mistakenly adopted, and which from
the first exposed that Government to the reproach of
thrusting all neutral rights aside in pursuit of its imme-
diate objects.

The Government of the United States has been very-
patient. At every stage of this distressing experience
of tragedy after tragedy in which its own citizens were
involved it has sought to be restrained from any extreme
course of action or of protest by a thoughtful consider-
ation of the extraordinary circumstances of this un-
precedented war, and actuated in all that it said or
did by the sentiments of genuine friendship which the
people of the United States have always entertained
and continue to entertain towards the German nation.
It has of course accepted the successive explanations and
assurances of the Imperial German Government as given
in entire sincerity and good faith, and has hoped, even
against hope, that it would prove to be possible for the
German Government so to order and control the acts
of its naval commanders as to square its policy with
the principles of humanity as embodied in the law of
nations. It has been willing to wait until the signifi-
cance of the facts became absolutely unmistakable and
susceptible of but one interpretation.

That point has now unhappily been reached. The
facts are susceptible of but one interpretation. The
Imperial German Government has been unable to put
any limits or restraints upon its warfare against either
freight or passenger ships. It has therefore become
painfully evident that the position which this Govern-
ment took at the very outset is inevitable, namely, that

188 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

process of being swept utterly away in the maelstrom of
this terrible war. We owe it to a due regard for our
own rights as a nation, to our sense of duty as a rep-
resentative of the rights of neutrals the world over,
and to a just conception of the rights of mankind to
take this stand now with the utmost solemnity and
firmness.

I have taken it, and taken it in the confidence that
it will meet with your approval and support. All sober-
minded men must imite in hoping that the Imperial
German Government, which has in other circumstances
stood as the champion of all that we are now contending
for in the interest of humanity, may recognize the jus-
tice of our demands and meet them in the spirit in
which they are made.

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE FIRST AN-
NUAL ASSEMBLAGE OF THE LEAGUE
TO ENFORCE PEACE, WASHINGTON,

MAY 27, 1916

The League to Enforce Peace was formed at Philadelphia on June 17, 1016,
proposing a league of the nations to submit their justiciable disputes to the
decision of an international court of justice; their non-justiciable disputes to a
council of conciliation for investigation and report, leaving to public opinion the
enforcement of the decision of the court and the report of the Council; pledging
the combined force of the members of the League to restrain a member thereof
from going to war with another member before the submission of the dispute to
court or council, at the request of the other disputant; and finally, an agreement
of the members of the League to hold conferences from time to time, to agree
upon the principles of international law to be applied by the court in the settle-
ment of disputes submitted to it. At the banquet of the League held in Wash*
ington. May 27, 1016, the President delivered the following address.

When the invitation to be here to-night came to me,
I was glad to accept it, — ^not because it offered me an
opportunity to discuss the program of the League, —
that you will, I am sure, not expect of me, — ^but because
the desire of the whole world now turns eagerly, more
and more eagerly, towards the hope of peace, and there
is just reason why we should take our part in counsel
upon this great theme. It is right that I, as spokesman
of our Government, should attempt to give expression
to what I believe to be the thought and purpose of the
people of the United States in this vital matter.

This great war that broke so suddenly upon the world

188

190 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

two years ago, and which has swept within its flame so
great a part of the civilized world, has affected ns very
profoundly, and we are not only at liberty, it is perhaps
our duty, to speak very frankly of it and of the great
interests of civilization which it affects.

With its causes and its objects we are not con-
cerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupen-
dous flood has burst forth we are not interested to
search for or explore. But so great a flood, spread far
and wide to every quarter of the globe, has of neces-
sity engulfed many a fair province of right that lies
very near to us. Our own rights as a Nation, the liber-
ties, the privileges, and the property of our people have
been profoundly affected. We are not mere discon-
nected lookers-on. The longer the war lasts, the more
deeply do we become concerned that it should be brought
to an end and the world be permitted to resume its
normal life and course again. And when it does come
to an end we shall be as much concerned as the nations
at war to see peace assume an aspect of permanence,
give promise of days from which the anxiety of uncer-
tainty shall be lifted, bring some assurance that peace
and war shall always hereafter be reckoned part of
the common interest of mankind. We are participants,
whether we would or not, in the life of the world. The
interests of all nations are our own also. We are part-
ners with the rest. What affects mankind is inevitably
our affair as well as the affair of the nations of Europe
and of Asia.

One observation on the causes of the present war we
are at liberty to make, and to make it may throw some

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 191

light forward upon the future, as well as backward
upon the past. It is plain that this war could have come
only as it did, suddenly and out of secret counsels, with-
out warning to the world, without discussion, without
any of the deliberate movements of counsel with which
it would seem natural to approach so stupendous a con-
test. It is probable that if it had been foreseen just
what would happen, just what alliances would be formed,
just what forces arrayed against one another, those who
brought the great contest on would have been glad to
substitute conference for force. If we ourselves had
been afforded some opportunity to apprise the belliger-
ents of the attitude which it would be our duty to take,
of the policies and practices against which we would
feel boimd to use all our moral and economic strength,
and in certain circumstances even our physical strength
also, our own contribution to the counsel which might
have averted the struggle would have been considered
worth weighing and regarding.

And the lesson which the shock of being taken by
surprise in a matter so deeply vital to aU the nations
of the world has made poignantly clear is, that the peace
of the world must henceforth depend upon a new and
more wholesome diplomacy. Only when the great na-
tions of the world have reached some sort of agreement
as to what they hold to be fundamental to their com-
mon interest, and as to some feasible method of acting
in concert when any nation or group of nations seeks
to disturb those fundamental things, can we feel that
civilization is at last in a way of justifying its existence
and claiming to be finally established. It is clear that

192 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

nations must in the future be governed by the same
high code of honor that we demand of individuals.

We must, indeed, in the very same breath with which
we avow this conviction admit that we have ourselves
upon occasion in the past been offenders against the law
of diplomacy which we thus forecast; but our convic-
tion is not the less clear, but rather the more clear, on
that account. If this war has accomplished nothing else
for the benefit of the world, it has at least disclosed a
great moral necessity and set forward the thinking of
the statesmen of the world by a whole age. Repeated
utterances of the leading statesmen of most of the great
nations now engaged in war have made it plain that
their thought has come to this, that the principle of
public right must henceforth take precedence over the
individual interests of particular nations, and that the
nations of the world must in some way band themselves
together to see that that right prevails as against any
sort of selfish aggression; that henceforth alliance must
not be set up against alliance, understanding against
imderstanding, but that there must be a common agree-
ment for a common object, and that at the heart of
that common object must lie the inviolable rights of
peoples and of mankind. The nations of the world have
become each other's neighbors. It is to their interest
that they should understand each other. In order that
they may understand each other, it is imperative that
they should agree to co-operate in a common cause, and
that they should so act that the guiding principle of
that common cause shall be even-handed and impartial
justice.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 193

This is undoubtedly the thought of America. This
is what we ourselves will say when there comes proper
occasion to say it. In the dealings of nations with on6
another arbitrary force must be rejected and we must
move forward to the thought of the modern world, the
thought of which peace is the very atmosphere. That
thought constitutes a chief part of the passionate con-
viction of America.

We believe these fundamental things: First, that
every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under
which they shall live. Like other nations, we have our-
selves no doubt once and again offended against that
principle when for a little while controlled by selfish
passion, as our franker historians have been honorable
enough to admit ; but it has become more and more our
rule of life and action. Second, that the small states
of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for
their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that
great and powerful nations expect and insist upon.
And, third, that the world has a right to be free from
every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in
aggression and disregard of 'the rights of peoples and
nations.

So sincerely do we believe in these things that I am
sure that I speak the mind and wish of the people of
America when I say that the United States is willing
to become a partner in any feasible association of
nations formed in order to realize these objects and
make them secure against violation.

There is nothing that the United States wants for
itself that any other nation has. We are willing, on the

IM PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

contrary, to limit ourselves along with them to a
prescribed course of duty and respect for the rights
of others which will check any selfish passion of our
own, as it will check any aggressive impulse of

theirs.

If it should ever be our privilege to suggest or
iuitiate a movement for peace among the nations now
at war, I am sure that the people of the United States
would wish their Government to move along these
lines: First, such a settlement with regard to their
own immediate interests as the belligerents may agree
upon. We have nothing material of any kind to ask
fw ourselves, and are quite aware that we are in no
Menae or degree parties to the present quarreL Our
interest is only in peace and its future guarantees.
Hecond, an imiversal association of the nations to main-
tain the inviolate security of the highway of the seas
for the common and unhindered use of all the nations
ivf the world, and to prevent any war begun either con-
trary to treaty covenants or without warning and full
submission of the causes to the opinion of the world, — a
virtual guarantee of territorial integrity and political
independence.

But I did not come here, let me repeat, to discuss
a program. I came only to avow a creed and give
expression to the confidence I feel that the world is even
now upon the eve of a great consummation, when some
common force will be brought into existence which shall
safeguard right as the first and most fundamental inter-
est of all peoples and all governments, when coercion
shall be summoned not to the service of political ambi-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 195

tion or selfish hostility, but to the service of a common
order, a common justice, and a common peace. God
grant that the dawn of that day of frank dealing and of
settled peace, concord, and co-operation may be near
at handl

ADDRESS ON MEMORIAL DAY AT ARLING-

TON, MAY 30, 1916

Whenever I seek to interpret the spirit of an occa-
sion like this, I am led to reflect upon the seas of mem-
ory. We are here to-day to recall a period of our his-
tory, which in one sense is so remote that we no longer
seem to keep the vital threads of it in our conscious-
ness, and yet is so near that men who played heroic
parts in it are still living, are still about us, are still
here to receive the homage of our respect and our
honor. They belong to an age which is past, to a period,
the vital questions of which no longer vex the nation,
to a period of which it may be said that certain things
which had been questionable in the affairs of the United
States were once for all settled, disposed of, put behind
us, and in the course of time have almost been forgotten.

It was a singularly complete work that was per-
formed by the processes of blood and iron at the time
of the Civil War, and it is singular how the settlement
has ruled our spirits since it was made. I see in this
very audience men who fought in the Confederate ranks.
I see them taking part in these exercises in the same
spirit of sincere patriotism that moves those who fought
on the side of the Union, and I reflect how singular
and how handsome a thing it is that wounds such as
then were opened should be so completely healed, and
that the spirit of America should so prevail over the
spirit of division.

196

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 197

It is the all-prevailing and triumphant spirit of
America, where, by our common action and consent,
Governments are set up and pulled down, where affairs
are ruled by common counsel, and where, by the healing
processes of peace all men are united in a common
enterprise of liberty and of peace.

And yet, ladies and gentlemen, the very object for
which we are met together is to renew in our hearts
the spirit that made these things possible. The Union
was saved by the processes of the Civil War. That was
a crisis which could be handled, it seems, in no other
way, but I need not tell you that the peculiarity of this
singular and beloved country is that its task — ^its human
task — is apparently never finished; that it is always
making and to be made.

And there is at present upon us a crisis which seems
to threaten to be a new crisis of division. We know
that the war which is to ensue will be a war of
spirits and not of arms. We know that the spirit
of America is invincible and that no man can abate
its power, but we know that that spirit must upon
occasion be asserted, and that this is one of the
occasions.

America is made up out of all the nations of the
world. Look at the rosters of the Civil War. Tou will
see names there drawn from almost every European
stock. Not recently, but from the first, America has
drawn her blood and her impulse from all the sources
of energy that spring at the fountains of every race,
and because she is thus compounded out of the peoples
of the world her problem is largely a problem of union

IM PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

.Ul tht) tixue> a problem of compounding out of many
cl^uouta a single triiunphal force.

'Ihe war in Emrope has done a very natural thing
iu ^Viuorica. It has stirred the memories of men drawn
twm uuuiy of the belligerent stocks. It has renewed
iu thwx a national feeling which had grown faint under
ttic i^oothing influence of peace, but which now flares up
wht^n it looks as if nation had challenged nation to a final
iHH^oning, and they remember the nations from which
thuy were sprung and know that they are in this life-
aud-death grapple. It is not singular, my fellow citi-
lAons, that this should have occurred, and up to a certain
point it is not just that we should criticize it. We have
uo oritidsm for men who love the places of their birth
aud the sources of their origin. We do not wish men
ti> target their mothers and their fathers, their forbears
vuuuing back through long, laborious generations which
have taken part in the building up of the strength and
apirit of other nations. No man quarrels with that.

From such springs of sentiment we all draw some
of the handsomest inspirations of our lives. But all
that we do criticize is that in some instances — they are
not very numerous — ^but in some instances men have
allowed this old ardor of another nationality to over-
throw their ardor for the nationality to which they
have given their new and voluntary allegiance. And
ao the United States has again to work out by spiritual
process a new imion, when men shall not think of what
divides them but shall recall what imites them; when
men shall not allow old loves to take the place of pres-
ent allegiances ; when men must, on the contrary, trans-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 199

late that very ardor of love for the country of their birth
into the ardor of love for the country of their adoption
and the principles which it represents.

I have no harshness in my heart even for the ex-
tremists in this thing which I have been trying in
moderate words to describe; but I summon them, and
I summon them very solemnly, not to set their pur-
pose against the purpose of America. America must
come first in every purpose we entertain, and every
man must count upon being cast out of our confidence,
cast out even of our tolerance, who does not submit to
that great ruHng principle.

But what are the purposes of America? Do you
not see that there is another significance in the fact
that we are made up out of all the peoples of the world ?
The significance of that fact is that we are not going
to devote our nationality to the same mistaken aggres-
sive purposes that some other nationalities have been
devoted to; that because we are made up, and con-
sciously made up, out of all the great family of man-
kind, we are champions of the rights of mankind.

We are not only ready to co-operate, but we are
ready to fight against any aggression, whether from
without or from within. But we must guard ourselves
against the sort of aggression which would be unworthy
of America. We are ready to fight for our rights when
those rights are coincident with the rights of man and
humanity. It was to set those rights up, to vindicate
them, to offer a •home to every man who believed in
them, that America was created and her Government set
up. We have kept our doors open because we did not

200 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

think we in conscience could close them against men who
wanted to join their force with ours in vindicating the
claim of mankind to liberty and justice.

America does not want any additional territory. She
does not want any selfish advantage over any other
nation in the world, but she does wish every nation in
the world to understand what she stands for and to
respect what she stands for; and I cannot conceive of
any man of any blood or origin failing to feel an enthusi-
asm for the things that America stands for, or failing
to see that they are indefinitely elevated above any pur-
pose of aggression or selfish advantage.

I said the other evening in another place that one
of the principles which America held dear was that
small and weak States had as much right to their sover-
eignty and independence as large and strong States.
She believes that because strength and weakness have
nothing to do with her principles. Her principles are
for the rights and liberties of mankind, and this is the
haven which we have offered to those who believe that
sublime and sacred creed of humanity.

And I also said that I believed the people of
the United States were ready to become partners in any
alliance of the nations that would guarantee public right
above selfish aggression. Some of the public prints have
reminded me, as if I needed to be reminded, of what
General Washington warned us against. He warned us
against entangling alliances. I shall never myself con-
sent to an entangling alliance, but I would gladly assent
to a disentangling alliance — an alliance which would
disentangle the peoples of the world from those com-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 201

binations in which they seek their own separate and
private interests and unite the people of the world to
preserve the peace of the world upon a basis of com-
mon right and justice. There is liberty there, not limi-
tation. There is freedom, not entanglement. There is
the adiievement of the highest things for which the
United States has declared its principle.

We have been engaged recently, my fellow citizens, in
discussing the processes of preparedness. I have been
trying to explain to you what we are getting prepared for,
and I want to point out to yoit the only process of
preparation which is possible for the United States.

It is possible for the United States to get ready
only if the men of suitable age and strength will volun-
teer to get ready.

I heard the president of the United States Chamber
of Conunerce report the other evening on a referendum
of 750 of the Chambers of Commerce of the United
States upon the question of preparedness, and he re-
ported that 99 per cent of them had voted in favor of
preparedness. Very well, now, we are going to apply
the acid test, to those gentlemen, and the acid test is this :
Will they give the young men in their employment free-
dom to volunteer for this thing ? I wish the referendum
had included that, becau^ie that is of the essence of the
matter.

It is all very well to say that somebody else must
prepare, but are the business men of this country ready
themselves to lend a hand and sacrifice an interest in
order that we may get ready! We shall have an answer
to that question in the next few months. A bill is lying

202 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

upon my table now, ready to be signed, which bristles
all over with that interrogation point, and I want all
the business men of the country to see that interroga-
tion point staring them in the face. I have heard a
great many people talk about universal training. Uni-
versal voluntary training, with aU my heart, if you
wish it, but America does not wish anything but the
compulsion of the spirit of America.

I, for my part, do not entertain any serious doubt
of the answer to these questions, because I suppose there
is no place in the world where the compulsion of public
opinion is more imperative than it is in the United
States. You know yourself how you behave when you
think nobody is watching. And now all the people of
the United States are watching each other. There never
was such a blazing spotlight upon the conduct and prin-
ciples of every American as each one of us now walks
and blinks in.

And as this spotlight sweeps its relentless rays across
every square mile of the territory of the United States,
I know a great many men, even when they do not want
to, are going to stand up and say, **Here.'' Because
America is roused, roused to a self -consciousness and
a national self -consciousness such as she has not had in
a generation.

And this spirit is going out conquering and to con-
quer until, it may be, in the Providence of God, a new
light is lifted up in America which shall throw the rays
of liberty and justice far abroad upon every sea, and
even upon the lands which now wallow in darkness and
refuse to see the light.

ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF

THE UNITED STATES MILITARY

ACADEMY, JUNE 18. 1916

The United States Military Academy was authorized by an act of Congress
of March 16, 1802. West Point, New York, was selected for its location, and,
with a class of ten cadets present, it was formally opened on July 4, 1802.
The Act of May 4, 1916, provided that the Corps of Cadets at the United States
Military Academy shall hereafter consist of two for each congressional district,
two from each Territory, four from the District of Columbia, two from natives
uf Porto Rico, four from each State at large, and eighty from the United States
at large twenty of whom shall be selected from among the honor graduates
of educational institutions having officers of the Regular Army detailed as pro-
fessors of military science and tactics under existing law or any law hereafter
enacted for the detail of officers of the Regular Army to such institutions, and
which institutions are designated as "honor schools" upon the determination
of their relative standing at the last preceding annual inspection regularly
made by the War Department. They shall be appointed by the President and
shall, with the exception of the eighty appointed from the United States at
large, be actual residents of the Congressional or Territorial district, or of the
District of Columbia, or of the island of Porto Rico, or of the States, respec*
tively, from which they purport to be appointed. On mental and physical
examination they are admitted to the Academy, and upon the successful com-
pletion of four years of study are appointed second lieutenants of the Regular
Army. The number allowed by law is 1336 and the actual nuihber in attendance
in 1917 was 898. To the class graduating on June 13, 1916, President Wilson
delivered the following address.

I look upon this body of men who are graduating
today with a peculiar interest. I feel like congratu-
lating them that they are living in a day not only so
interesting, because so fraught with change, but also
because so responsible. Days of responsibility are the
only days that count in time, because they are the only
days that give test of quality. They are the only days
when manhood and purpose is tried out as if by fire.
I need not tell you young gentlemen that you are not
like an ordinary graduating class of one of our uni-
versities. The men in those classes look forward to
the life which they are to lead after graduation with

208

204 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

a great many questions in their mind. Most of them
do not know exactly what their lives are going to
develop into. Some of them do not know what occupa-
tions they are going to follow. All of them are con-
jecturing what will be the line of duty and advancement
and the ultimate goal of success for them.

There is no conjecture for you. You have enlisted
in something that does not stop when you leave the
Academy, for you then only begin to realize it, which
then only begins to be fulfilled with the full richness
of its meaning, and you can look forward with absolute
certainty to the sort of thing that you will be obliged
to do.

This has always been true of graduating classes at
West Point, but the certainty that some of the older
classes used to look forward to was a dull certainty.
Some of the old days in the army, I fancy, were not
very interesting days. Sometimes men like the present
Chief of Staff, for example, could fill their lives with
the interest of really knowing and understanding the
Indians of the Western plains, knowing what was going
on inside their minds and being able to be the inter-
mediary between them and those who dealt with them,
by speaking their sign language, could enrich their
lives, but the ordinary life of the average officer at a
Western post can not have been very exciting, and I
think with admiration of those dull years through
which officers who had not a great deal to do insisted,
nevertheless, upon being efficient and worth while and
keeping their men fit at any rate, for the duty to which
they were assigned.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 205

But in your case there are many extraordinary
possibilities, because, gentlemen, no man can certainly
teU you what the immediate future is going to be either
in the history of this country or in the history of the
world. It is not by accident that the present great
war came in Europe- Every element was there, and
the contest had to come sooner or later, and it is not
going to be by accident that the results are worked
out, but by purpose — ^by the purpose of the men who
are strong enough to have guiding minds and in-
domitable wills when the time for decision and settle-
ment comes. And the part that the United States is
to play has this distinction in it, that it is to be in any
event a disinterested part. There is nothing that the
United States wants that it has to get by war, but
there are a great many things that the United States
has to do. It has to see that its life is not interfered
with by anybody else who wants something.

These are days when we are making preparation,
when the thing most conunonly discussed around every
sort of table, in every sort of circle, in the shops and
in the streets, is preparedness, and undoubtedly, gentle-
men, that is the present imperative duty of America,
to be prepared. But we ought to know what we are
preparing for. I remember hearing a wise man say
once that the old maxim that "everything comes to
the man who waits'' is all very well provided he knows
what he is waiting for; and preparedness might be
a very hazardous thing if we did not know what we
wanted to do with the force that we mean to accumulate
and to get into fighting shape.

206 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

America, fortunately, does know what she wants
to do with her force. America came into existence for
a particular reason. iWhen you look about upon these
beautiful hills, and up this stately stream, and then
let your imagination run over the whole body of this
great country from which you youngsters are drawn,
far and wide, you remember that while it had aborigi-
nal inhabitants, while there were people living here,
there was no civilization which we displaced. It was
as if in the Providence of God a continent had been
kept unused and waiting for a peaceful people who
loved liberty and the rights of men more than they
loved anything else, to come and set up an unselfish
commonwealth. It is a very extraordinary thing. You
are so familiar with American history, at any rate in
its general character — ^I don't accuse you of knowing
the details of it, for I never found the youngster who
did, — ^but you are so familiar with the general character
of American history that it does not seem strange to
you, but it is a very strange history. There is none
other like it in the whole annals of mankind — of men
gathering out of every civilized nation of the world
on an unused continent and building up a polity exactly
to suit themselves, not under the domination of any
ruling dynasty or of the ambitions of any royal family ;
doing what they pleased with their own Hf e on a free
space of land which God had made rich with every
resource which, was necessary for the civilization they
meant to build up. There is nothing like it.

Now, what we are preparing to do is to see that
nobody mars that and that, being safe itself against

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 207

interference from the outside, all of its force is going
to be behind its moral idea, and mankind is going to
know that when America speaks she means what she
says. I heard a man say to another, "If you wish me
to consider you witty, I must really trouble you to
make a joke.'' We have a right to say to the rest of
mankind, **If you don't want to interfere with us, if
you are disinterested, we must really trouble you to
give the evidence of that fact." We are not in for any-
thing selfish, and we want the whole mighty power of
America thrown into that scale and not into any other.
You know that the chief thing that is holding many
people back from enthusiasm for what is called pre-
paredness is the fear of militarism. I want to say
a word to you young gentlemen about militarism. You
are not militarists because you are military. Militarism
does not consist in the existence of an army, not even
in the existence of a very great army. Militarism is
a spirit. It is a point of view. It is a system. It
is a purpose. The purpose of militarism is to use
armies for aggression. The spirit of militarism is the
opposite of the civilian spirit, the citizen spirit. In a
country where militarism prevails the military man
looks down upon the civilian, regards him as inferior,
thinks of him as intended for his, the military man's,
support and use; and just so long as America is
America that spirit and point of view is impossible
with us. There is as yet in this country, so far as
I can discover, no taint of the spirit of militarism.
You young gentlemen are not preferred in promotion
because of the families you belong to. You are not

208 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

drawn into the Academy because you belong to certain
influential circles. You do not come here with a long
tradition of military pride back of you.

You are picked out from the citizens of the United
States to be that part of the force of the United States
which makes its polity safe against interference. You
are the part of American citizens who say to those
who would interfere, "You must not'' and **You shall
not.'' But you are American citizens, and the idea
I want to leave with you boys today is this: No mat-
ter what comes, always remember that first of all you
are citizens of the United States before you are officers,
and that you are officers because you represent in your
particular profession what the citizenship of the United
States stands for. There is no danger of militarism
if you are genuine Americans, and I for one do not
doubt that you are. When you begin to have the mili-
taristic spirit — ^not the military spirit, that is aU right —
then begin to doubt whether you are Americans or not.

You know that one thing in which our forefathers
took pride was this, that the civil power is superior
to the military power in the United States. Once and
again the people of the United States have so admired
some great military man as to make him President of
the United States, when he became commander-in-chief
of all the forces of the United States, but he was com-
mander-in-chief because he was President, not because
he had been trained to arms, and his authority was
civil, not military. I can teach you nothing of military
power, but I am instructed by the Constitution to use
you for constitutional and patriotic purposes. And

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 209

that is the only use you care to be put to, and that is
the only use you ought to care to be put to, because,
after all, what is the use in being an American if you
do not know what it is?

You have read a great deal in the books about the
pride of the old Roman citizen, who always felt like
drawing himself to his full height when he said, **I am
a Roman,'' but as compared with the pride that must
have risen to his heart, our pride has a new distinction,
not the distinction of the mere imperial power of a
great empire, not the distinction of being masters of
the world, but the distinction of carrying certain lights
for the world that the world has never so distinctly
seen before, certain guiding lights of liberty and prin-
ciple and justice. We have drawn our people, as you
know, from all parts of the world, and we have been
somewhat disturbed recently, gentlemen, because some
of those — ^though I believe a very small number — ^whom
we have drawn into our citizenship have not taken
into their hearts the spirit of America and have loved
other countries more than they loved the country of
their adoption; and we have talked a great deal about
Americanism. It ought to be a matter of pride with
us to know what Americanism really consists in.

Americanism consists in utterly believing in the
principles of America and putting them first as above
anything that might by chance come into competition
with it. And I, for my part, believe that the American
test is a spiritual test. If a man has to make excuses
for what he had done as an American, I doubt his
Americanism. He ought to know at every step of his

210 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

action that the motive that lies behind what he does
is a motive which no American need be ashamed of
for a moment Now, we ought to put this test to every
man we know. We ought to let it be known that nobody
who does not put America first can consort with us.

But we ought to set them the example. We ought
to set them the example by thinking American thoughts,
by entertaining American purposes, and those thoughts
and purposes will stand the test of example anywhere
in the world, for they are intended for the betterment
of mankind.

So I have come to say these few words to you to-
day, gentlemen, for a double purpose; first of all to
express my personal good wishes to you in your gradua-
tion, and my personal interest in you, and second of
all to remind you how we must all stand together in
one spirit as lovers and servants of America. And that
means something more than lovers and servants merely
of the United States. You have heard of the Monroe
Doctrine, gentlemen. You know that we are already
spiritual partners with both continents of this hemi-
sphere and that America means something which is
bigger even than the United States, and that we stand
here with the glorious power of this country ready to
swing it out into the field of action whenever liberty
and independence and political integrity are threatened
anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And we are
ready — ^nobody has authorized me to say this, but I am
sure of it — ^we are ready to join with the other nations
of the world in seeing that the kind of justice prevails
everywhere that we believe in.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 211

So that you are graduating to-day, gentlemen, into a
new distinction. Glory attaches to all these men whose
names we love to recount who have made the annals of
the American Army distinguished. They played the
part they were called upon to play with honor and with
extraordinary character and success. I am congratulat-
ing you, not because you will be better than they, but
because you will have a wider world of thought and con-
ception to play your part in. I am an American, but I
do not believe that any of us loves a blustering nation-
ality, a nationality with a chip on its shoulder, a
nationality with its elbows out and its swagger on.

We love that quiet, self-respecting, unconquerable
spirit which does not strike until it is necessary to
strike, and then strikes to conquer. Never since I was
a youngster have I been afraid of the noisy man. I
have always been afraid of the still man. I have
always been afraid of the quiet man. I had a class-
mate at college who was most dangerous when he was
most affable. When he was maddest he seemed to have
the sweetest temper in the world. He would approach
you with the most ingratiating smile, and then you
knew that every red corpuscle in his blood was up
and shouting. If you work things off in your elbows,,
you do not work them off in your mind; you do not
work them off in your purposes.

So my conception of America is a conception of
infinite dignity, along with quiet, unquestionable power.
I ask you, gentlemen, to join with me in that con-
ception, and let us all in our several spheres be soldiers
together to realize it.

ADDRESS ON FLAG DAY, WASHINGTON,

JUNE 14, 1916

Mb. Secbetaby, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have not come here this afternoon with the pur-
pose of delivering to you an elaborate address. It seems
to me that the day is sufficiently eloquent already with
the meaning which it should convey to us. The spec-
tacle of the morning has been a very moving spectacle
indeed — an almost unpremeditated outpouring of thou-
sands of sober citizens to manifest their interest in the
safety of the country and the sacredness of the flag
which is its emblem.

I need not remind you how much sentiment has been
poured out in honor of the flag of the United States.
Sometimes we have been charged with being a very sen-
timental people, fond of expressing in general rhetorical
phrases principles not sufficiently defined in action, and
I dare say there have been times of happy and careless
ease in this coimtry, when all that it has been neces-
sary to do for the honor of the flag was to put our
sentiments into poetic expressions, into the words that
for the time being satisfied our hearts.

But this is not a day of sentiment. Sentiment is a
propulsive power, but it does not propel in the way that
is serviceable to the nation unless it have a definite pur-
pose before it. This is not merely a day of sentiment.
This is a day of purpose.

912

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 213

It is an eloquent symbol of the unity of our history
that upon this monument, which commemorates the man
who did most to establish the American Union, we should
have hoisted those stars that have so multiplied since
his time, associated with those lines of red and white
which mean all that is pure in our purpose, and all that
is red in our blood in the service of a nation whose his-
tory has been full of inspiration because of his example.

But Washington was one of the least sentimental
men that America has ever produced. The thing that
thrills me about Washington is that he is impatient of
any sentiment that has not got definite purpose in it.
His letters run along the lines of action, not merely
along the mere lines of sentiment, and the most inspir-
ing times that this nation has ever seen have been the
times when sentiment had to be translated into action.

Apparently this nation is again and again and again
to be tested, and always tested in the same way. The
last supreme test this nation went through was the test
of the Civil War. You know how deep that cut. You
know what exigent issues of life were at issue in that
struggle. You know how two great sections of this
Union seemed to be moving in opposite directions, and
for a long time it was questionable whether that flag
represented any one united purpose in America. And
you know how deep that struggle cut into the sentiments
of this people, and how there came a whole generation,
following that great struggle, when men's hearts were
bitter and sore, and memories hurt as well as exalted,.
and how it seemed as if a rift had come in the hearts
of the people of America.

214 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

And you know how that ended. While it seemed a
time of terror, it has turned out a proof of the validity
of our hope. Where are now the divisions of sentiment
which cut us asunder at the time of the Civil War?
Did you not see the Blue and the Gray mingled this
morning in the procession? Did not you see the sons
of a subsequent generation walking together in happy
comradeship? Was there any contradiction of feel-
ing or division of sentiment evident there for a
moment ?

Nothing cuts so deep as a civil war, and yet all the
woimds of that war have been healed, not only, but
the very passion of that war seems to have contributed
to the strength of national feeling which now moves us
as a single body politic.

And yet again the test is applied, my fellow-country-
men. A new sort of division of feeling has sprung up
among us. You know that we are derived in our citizen-
ship from every nation in the world. It is not singu-
lar that sentiment should be disturbed by what is going
on on the other side of the water, but while sentiment
may be disturbed, loyalty ought not to be.

I want to be scrupulously just, my fellow-citizens,
in assessing the circiunstances of this day, and I am
siu-e that you wish with me to deal ou? with an even
hand the praise and the blame of this day of test.

I believe that the vast majority of those men whose
lineage is directly derived from the nations now at war
are just as loyal to the flag of the United States as any
native citizen of this beloved land, but there are some
men of that extraction who are not, and they, not only

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 215

in past months, but at the present time, are doing their
best to midermine the influence of the Government of
the United States in the interest of matters which are
foreign to us and which are not derived from the ques-
tions of our own politics.

There is disloyalty active in the United States, and
it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from a
minority, a very small minority, but a very active and
subtle minority. It works undergroimd, but it also
shows its ugly head where we can see it ; and there are
those at this moment who are trying to levy a species
of political blackmail, saying, **Do what we wish in the
interest of foreign sentiment or we will wreak our venge-
ance at the polls/'

That is the sort of thing against which the Ameri-
can nation will turn with a might and triumph of sen-
timent which will teach these gentlemen once for all
that loyalty to this flag is the first test of tolerance in
the United States.

That is the lesson that I have come to remind you
of on this day — ^no mere sentiment. It runs into your
daily life and conversation. Are you going yourselves,
individually and collectively, to see to it that no man
is tolerated who does not do honor to that flag? It is
not a matter of force. It is not a matter, that is to
say, of physical force. It is a matter of a greater force
than that which is physical. It is a matter of spiritual
force. It is to be achieved as we think, as we purpose,
as we believe, and when the world finally learns that
America is indivisible then the world will learn how
truly and profoimdly great and powerful America is.

216 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

I realize personally, my fellow citizens, the peculiar
significance of the flag of the United States at this time,
because there was a day not many years ago when,
although I thought I knew what the flag stood for, it had
not penetrated my whole consciousness as it has now.

If you could have gone with me through the space
of the last two years, and could have felt the subtle
impact of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with
me that those to whom you have intrusted authority are
trustees not only of the power, but of the very spirit
and purpose of the United States, you would realize
with me the solemnity with which I look upon the
sublime symbol of our unity and power.

I want you to share that consciousness with me. I
want you to realize that in what I am saying I am
merely your spokesman, merely trying to interpret your
thoughts, merely trying to put into inadequate words
the purpose that is in your hearts. I regard this day
as a day of rededication to all the ideals of the United
States.

I took the liberty a few weeks ago to ask our fellow
citizens all over the United States to gather together in
celebration of this day — ^the anniversary of the adoption
of our present flag as the emblem of the nation. I had
no legal right to declare it a holiday, I had no legal
right to ask for the cessation of business, but when you
read the papers to-morrow morning, I think you will see
that authority was not necessary ; that the people of the
country were waiting for an opportunity to cease their
ordinary business and gather together in united demon-
stration of their feeling as a nation.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS . 217

It was a very happy thought that led the committee
of gentlemen who had charge of the demonstration of
the forenoon to choose June 14 for the parade which
most of us have witnessed. It is a tiresome thing, my
fellow citizens, to stand for hours and see a parade go
by, but I want to take you into this secret: It was not
half as tiresome as the inauguration parade. The
inauguration parade is a very interesting thing, but it
is painfully interesting to the man who is being in-
augurated, because there then lie ahead of him the four
years of responsibility whose horoscope cannot be cast
by any man. But to-day was interesting because the
inauguration parade of the day of my inauguration is
more than three years gone by. I have gone through
deep waters with you in the meantime.

This parade was not a demonstration in honor of any
man. It was an outpouring of people to demonstrate a
great national sentiment. I was not the object of it;
I was one citizen among millions whose heart beat in
unison with it. I felt caught up and buoyed along by
the great stream of human purpose which seemed to
flow there in front of me by the stand by the White
House, and I shall go away from this meeting, as 1
came away from that parade, with all the deepest pur-
poses of my heart renewed ; and as I see the winds lov-
ingly unfold the beautiful lines of our great flag, I shall
seem to see a hand pointing the way of duty no matter
how hard, no matter how long, which we shall tread
while we vindicate the glory and honor of the United
States.

ADDRESS ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE, BE-
FORE THE SALESMANSHIP CONGRESS,

DETROIT, JULY 10, 1916

Mr, Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

It is with a great deal of gratification that I find
myself facing so interesting and important a company
as this. You will readily understand that I have not
come here to make an elaborate address, but I have
come here to express my interest in the objects of this
great association, and to congratulate you on the oppor-
tunities which are immediately ahead of you in handling
the business of this coimtry.

These are days of incalculable change, my fellow
citizens. It is impossible for anybody to predict any-
thing that is certain, in detail, with regard to the future
either of this country or of the world in the large move-
ments of business ; but one thing is perfectly clear, and
that is that the United States will play a new part,
and that it will be a part of imprecedented opportunity
and of greatly increased responsibility.

The United States has had a very singular history in
respect of its business relationships with the rest of the
world. I have always believed, and I think you have
always believed, that there is more business genius in
the United States than anywhere else in the world;
and yet America has apparently been afraid of touch-
ing too intimately the great processes of international
exchange. America, of aU countries in the world, has

218

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 219

been timid; has not until recently, has not until within
the last two or three years, provided itself with the
fundamental instrumentalities for playing a large part
in the trade of the world. America, which ought to
have had the broadest vision of any nation, has raised
up an extraordinary niunber of provincial thinkers, men
who thought provincially about business, men who
thought that the United States was not ready to take
her competitive part in the struggle for the peaceful
conquest of the world. For anybody who reflects philo-
sophically upon the history of this coimtry, that is the
most amazing fact about it.

But the time for provincial thinkers has gone by.
We must play a great part in the world whether we
choose it or not. Do you know the significance of this
single fact, that within the last year or two we have,
speaking in large terms, ceased to be a debtor nation
and become a creditor nation? We have more of the
surplus gold of the world than we ever had before, and
our business hereafter is to be to lend and to help and
to promote the great peaceful enterprises of the world.
We have got to finance the world in some important
degree, and those who finance the world must imder-
stand it and rule it with their spirits and with their
minds. We cannot cabin and confine ourselves any
longer, and so I said that I came here to congratulate
you upon the great role that lies ahead of you to play.
This is a salesmanship congress, and hereafter sales-
manship will have to be closely related in its outlook
and scope to statesmanship, to international statesman-
ship. It will have to be touched with an intimate com-

220 PRESIDEXT WILSONS FOREIGN POLICY

prehensioB of the conditions of bnsiness and enterprise
throughout the round globe, because America will have
to place her goods by running her inteDigenee ahead of
her goods. No amount of mere push, no amount of
mere hustling, or, to speak in the western language, no
amount of mere rustling, no amount of mere active
enterprise, will suffice.

There have been two ways of doing business in the
world outside of the lands in which the great manufac-
tures have been made. One has been to try to force
the tastes of the manufacturing country on the country
in which the markets were being sought, and the other
way has been to study the tastes and needs of the coun-
tries where the markets were being sought and suit your
goods to those tastes and needs; and the latter method
has beaten the former method. If you are going to sell
carpets, for example, in India, you have got to have as
good taste as the Indians in the patterns of the carpets,
and that is going some. If you are going to sell things
in tropical coimtries, they must, rather obviously, be
different from those which you sell in cold and arctic
coimtries. You cannot assume that the rest of the
world is going to wear or use or manufacture what
you wear and use and manufacture. Your raw mate-
rials must be the raw materials that they need, not the
raw materials that you need. Your manufactured goods
must be the manufactured goods which they desire, not
those which other markets have desired. So your busi-
ness will keep pace with your knowledge, not of your-
self and of your manufacturing processes, but of them
and of their commercial needs. That is statesmanship.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 221

because that is relating your international activities to
the conditions which exist in other countries.

If we can once get what some gentlemen are so loath
to give us, a merchant marine 1 The trouble with some
men is that they are slow in their minds. They do not
see ; they do not know the need, and they will not allow
you to point it out to them. If we can once get in a
position to deliver our own goods, then the goods that
we have to deliver will be adjusted to the desires of
those to whom we deliver them, and all the world will
welcome America in the great field of commerce and
manufacture.

There is a great deal of cant talked, my fellow citi-
zens, about service. I wish the word had not been sur-
roimded with so much sickly sentimentality, because it
is a good, robust, red-blooded word, and it is the key to
everything that concerns the peace and prosperity of
the world. You cannot force yourself upon anybody
who is not obliged to take you. The only way in which
you can be sure of being accepted is by being sure that
you have got something to offer that is worth taking,
and the only way you can be sure of that is by being
sure that you wish to adapt it to the use and the service
of the people to whom you are trying to sell.

I was trying to expoimd in another place the other
day the long way and the short way to get together.
The long way is to fight. ^ I hear some gentlemen say
that they want to help Mexico, and the way they pro-
pose to help her is to overwhelm her with force. That
is the long way to help Mexico as well as the wrong
way. After the fighting you have a nation full of justi-

222 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

fied suspicion and animated by well-founded hostility
and hatred, and then will you help them? Then will
you establish cordial business relationships with them?
Then will you go in as neighbors and enjoy their confi-
dence ? On the contrary, you will have shut every door
as if it were of steel against you. What makes Mexico
suspicious of us is that she does not believe as yet that
we want to serve her. She believes that we want to
possess her, and she has justification for the belief in the
way in which some of our fellow citizens have tried to
exploit her privileges and possessions. For my part, I
will not serve the ambitions of these gentlemen, but I
will try to serve all America, so far as intercourse with
Mexico is concerned, by trying to serve Mexico herself.
There are some things that are not debatable. Of course,
we have to defend our border. That goes without say-
ing. Of course, we must make good our own sovereignty,
but we must respect the sovereignty of Mexico. I am
one of those — ^I have sometimes suspected that there were
not many of them — ^who believe, absolutely believe, the
Virginia Bill of Rights, which was the model of the old
bill of rights, which says that a people has a right to
do anything they please with their own country and
their own government. I am old-fashioned enough to
believe that, and I am going to stand by that belief.
(That is for the benefit of those gentlemen who wish
to butt in.)

Now, I use that as an illustration, my fellow citizens.
What do we all most desire when the present tragical
confusion of the world's affairs is over? We desire
permanent peace, do we not? Permanent peace can

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAt'ERS 223

grow in only one soil. That is the soil of actual good
-will, and good will cannot exist without mutual com-
prehension. Charles Lamb, the English writer, made
a very delightful remark that I have long treasured in
my memory. He stuttered a Httle bit, and he said of
someone who was not present, "I h-h-hate that m-man;''
and someone said, "Why, Charles, I didn't know you
knew him.'' "Oh,'' he said, "I-I-I don't; I-I can't
h-hate a m-man I know." That is a profound human
remark. You cannot hate a man you know. I know
some rascals whom I have tried to hate. I have tried
to head them off as rascals, but I have been unable to
hate them. I have liked them. And so, not to compare
like with unlike, in the relationship of nations with each
other, many of our antagonisms are based upon mis-
imderstandings, and as long as you do not imderstand
a country you cannot trade with it. As long as you
cannot take its point of view you cannot commend your
goods to its purchase. As long as you go to it with a
supercilious air, for example, and patronize it, as we
have tried to do in some less developed countries, and
tell them that this is what they ought to want whether
they want it or not, you cannot do business with them.
You have got to approach them just as you really ought
to approach all matters of human relationship.

Those people who give their money to philanthropy,
for example, but cannot for the life of them see from the
point of view of those for whose benefit they are giving
the money are not philanthropists. They endow and
promote philanthropy, but you cannot be a philan-
thropist unless you love all sorts and conditions of men.

224 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

The great barrier in this world, I have sometimes
thought, is not the barrier of principle, but the barrier
of taste. Certain classes of society find certain other
classes of society distasteful to them. They do not like
the way they dress. They do not like the infrequeney
with which they bathe. They do not like to consort
with them imder the conditions imder which they live,
and, therefore, they stand at a distance from them, and
it is impossible for them to serve them. They do not
understand them and do not feel that common pulse of
' humanity and that common school of experience which
is the only thing that binds us together and educates us
in the same fashion.

This, then, my friends, is the simple message that I
bring you. Lift your eyes to the horizons of business;
do not look too close at the little processes with which
you are concerned, but let your thoughts and your
imaginations run abroad throughout the whole world,
and with the inspiration of the thought that you are
Americans and are meant to carry liberty and justice
and the principles of humanity wherever you go, go
out and sell goods that will make the world more com-
fortable and more happy, and convert them to the prin-
ciples of America.

PREPAREDNESS AND PEACE
ADDRESS AT TOLEDO, JULY 10, 1916

My Fellow Citizens:

This is an entire surprise party to me. I did not
know I was going to have the pleasure of stopping long
enough to address any number of you, but I am very
glad indeed to give you my very cordial greetings and
to express my very great interest in this interesting city.

General Sherwood said that there were many things
we agreed about; there is one thing we disagree about.
General Sherwood has been opposing preparedness, and
I have been advocating it, and I am very sorry to have
found him on the other side. Because, I think, you will
bear me witness, fellow citizens, that in advocating pre-
paredness I have not been advocating hostility. You
will bear me witness that I have been a persistent friend
of peace and that nothing but unmistakable necessity
will drive me from that position. I think it is a matter
of sincere congratulation to us that our neighbor Re-
public to the south shows evidences of at last believing
in our friendly intentions; that while we must protect
our border and see to it that our sovereignty is not
impugned, we are ready to respect their sovereignty
also, and to be their friends, and not their enemies.

The real uses of intelligence, my fellow citizens, are
the uses of peace. Any body of men can get up a row,
but only an intelligent body of men can get together
and co-operate. Peace is not only a test of a nation's
patience; it is also a test of whether the nation knows

225

226 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

how to conduct its relations or not. It takes time to do
intelligent things, and it does not take any time to do
unintelligent things. I can lose my temper in a minute,
but it takes me a long time to keep it, and I think that
if you were to subject my Scotch-Irish blood to the
proper kind of analysis, you would find that it was
fighting blood, and that it is pretty hard for a man
bom that way to keep quiet and do things in the way
in which his intelligence tells him he ought to do them.
I know just as well as that I am standing here that I
represent and am the servant of a Nation that loves
peace, and that loves it upon the proper basis; loves it
not because it is afraid of anybody ; loves it not because
it does not understand and mean to maintain its rights,
but because it knows that hiunanity is something in
which we are all linked together, and that it behooves
the United States, just as long as it is possible, to hold
off from becoming involved in a strife which makes
it all the more necessary that some part of the world
should keep cool while all the rest of it is hot. Here in
America, for the time being, are the spaces, the cool
spaces, of thoughtf ulness, and so long as we are allowed
to do so, we will serve and not contend with the rest
of our fellow men. We are the more inclined to do
this because the very principles upon which our Govern-
ment is based are principles of common counsel and
not of contest.

So, my fellow citizens, I congratulate myself upon
this opportunity, brief as it is, to give you my greetings
and to convey to you my congratulations that the signs
that surround us are aU signs of peace.

ADDRESS ON ACCEPTING RENOMINATION
FOR THE PRESIDENCY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1916 '

In foreign affairs we have been guided by prin-
ciples clearly conceived and consistently lived up to.
Perhaps they have not been fully comprehended because
they have hitherto governed international affairs only
in theory, not in practice. They are simple, obvious,
easily stated, and fundamental to American ideals.

We have been neutral not only because it was the
fixed and traditional policy of the United States to
stand aloof from the politics of Europe and because
we had had no part either of action or of policy in
the influences which brought on the present war, but
also because it was manifestly our duty to prevent, if
it were possible, the indefinite extension of the fires of
hate and desolation kindled by that terrible confiict and
seek to serve mankind by reserving our strength and
our resources for the anxious and difficult days of
restoration and healing which must follow, when peace
will have to build its house anew.

The rights of our own citizens of course became
involved : that was inevitable. Where they did this waa
our guiding principle : that property rights can be vin-
dicated by claims for damages when the war is over,,
and no modem nation can decline to arbitrate such
claims; but the fimdamental rights of humanity can-

' Only that part of the speech is given which concerns international r^
laUoDs.

227

228 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

not be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can
direct violations of a nation's sovereignty await vindi-
cation in suits for damages. The nation that violates
these essential rights must expect to be checked and
called to accoimt by direct challenge and resistance.
It at once makes the quarrel in part our own. These
are plain principles and we have never lost sight of
them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the
perplexity of circiunstance or the provocation to hasty
resentment. The record is clear and consistent through-
out and stands distinct and definite for anyone to judge
who wishes to know the truth about it.

The seas were not broad enough to keep the infec-
tion of the conflict out of our own politics. The pas-
sions and intrigues of certain active groups and com-
binations of men amongst us who were born under for-
eign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our
own most critical affairs, laid violent hands upon many
of our industries, and subjected us to the shame of
divisions of sentiment and purpose in which America
was contemned and forgotten. It is part of the busi-
ness of this year of reckoning and settlement to speak
plainly and act with xmmistakable purpose in rebuke
of these things, in order that they may be forever here-
after impossible. I am the candidate of a party, but I
am above all things else an American citizen. I neither
seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small
alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any
foreign power before loyalty to the United States.

While Europe was at war our own continent, one of
our own neighbors, was shaken by revolution. In that

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 229

matter, too, principle was plain and it was imperative
that we should live up to it if we were to deserve the
trust of any real partisan of the right as free men see it.
We have professed to believe, and we do believe, that
the people of small and weak states have the right to
expect to be dealt with exactly as the people of big and
powerful states would be. We have acted upon that
principle in dealing with the people of Mexico.

Our recent pursuit of bandits into Mexican terri-
tory was no violation of that principle. We ventured to
enter Mexican territory only because there were no
military forces in Mexico that could protect our border
from hostile attack and our own people from violence,
and we have committed there no single act of hostility
or interference even with the sovereign authority of the
Republic of Mexico herself. It was a plain case of the
violation of our own sovereignty which could not wait
to be vindicated by damages and for which there was no
other remedy. The authorities of Mexico were power-
less to prevent it.

Many serious wrongs against the property, many
irreparable wrongs against the persons, of Americans
have been committed within the territory of Mexico
herself during this confused revolution, wrongs which
could not be effectually checked so long as there was
no constituted power in Mexico which was in a position
to check them. We could not act directly in that matter
ourselves without denying Mexicans the right to any
revolution at all which disturbed us and making the
emancipation of her own people await our own interest
and convenience.

. s\VS FOREIGN POLICY

.virion that they are seeking, —

■ "* ;is yet ineffectually, but with

purpose and within their un-

^ what true American principle

,0 rhat an American would pub-

^ oi Mexico have not been suffered

,.:irry or direct their own institu-

<:i out of other nations and with

..cu to their own, have dictated what

u opportunities should be and who

.v;r land, their lives, and their re-

.Uoui Americans, pressing for things

uive got in their own country. The

;c entitled to attempt their liberty from

.iikl so long as I have anything to do

,;i of our great Government I shall do

. n\- power to prevent anyone standing in

\ xuow that this is hard for some persons

..aL; but it is not hard for the plain people

.. vNi States to understand. It is hard doctrine

uvio who wish to get something for them-

..; Moxico. There are men, and noble women,

. ii^w, of our own people, thank God! whose

av invested in great properties in Mexico

>vv the case with true vision and assess its

\\i\\\ true American feeling. The rest can

lor the present out of the reckoning until

iu-ilnvtul people has had its day of struggle

. ^l> the light. I have heard no one who was

noin such influences propose interference by

I uitoil States with the internal affairs of Mexico.

228 PRESIDi:^

not be. Tlio !'*•
direct violation^
cation in suits ^
these essentia ^ ""
called to n**'-.-
It at oiK-o V
are phiii? ^
them i)v '^-^ ,
perploxi\
res«^'nt»?:- ^ '
out ami

f ■ - •

?-'■■■ . >■

V **

V •

\ * »

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 281

Certainly no friend of the Mexican people has
proposed it.

The people of the United States are capable of great
sympathies and a noble pity in dealing with problems
of this kind. As their spokesman and representative,
I have tried to act in the spirit they would wish me to
show. The people of Mexico are striving for the rights
that are fundamental to life and happiness, — ^fifteen
million oppressed men, overburdened women, and piti-
ful children in virtual bondage in their own home of
fertile lands and inexhaustible treasure 1 Some of the
leaders of the revolution may often have been mistaken
and violent and selfish, but the revolution itself was
inevitable and is right. The imspeakable Huerta be-
trayed the very comrades he served, traitorously over-
threw the government of which he was a trusted part,
impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven
his people to the rebellion with which he had pretended
to sympathize. The men who overcame him and drove
him out represent at least the fierce passion of recon-
struction which lies at the very heart of liberty; and
so long as they represent, however imperfectly, such a
struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve their ends
when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests
with me the Government of the United States will refuse
to extend the hand of welcome to anyone who obtains
power in a sister republic by treachery and violence.
No permanency can be given the affairs of any republic
by a title based upon intrigue and assassination. I de-
clared that to be the policy of this Administration
within three weeks after I assumed the presidency. I

282 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

here again vow it. I am more interested in the for-
tunes of oppressed men and pitiful women and children
than in any property rights whatever. Mistakes I have
no doubt made in this perplexing business, but not in
purpose or object.

More is involved than the immediate destinies of
Mexico and the relations of the United States with a
distressed and distracted people. All America looks on.
Test is now being made of us whether we be sincere
lovers of popular liberty or not and are indeed to be
trusted to respect national sovereignty among our
weaker neighbors. We have undertaken these many
years to play big brother to the republics of this hemi-
sphere. This is the day of our test whether we mean,
or have ever meant, to play that part for our own
benefit wholly or also for theirs. Upon the outcome of
that test (its outcome in their minds, not in ours)
depends every relationship of the United States with
Latin America, whether in politics or in commerce and
enterprise. These are great issues and lie at the heart
of the gravest tasks of the future, tasks both economic
and political and very intimately inwrought with many
of the most vital of the new issues of the politics of the
world. The republics of America have in the last
three years been drawing together in a new spirit
of accommodation, mutual understanding, and cor-
dial co-operation. Much of the politics of the
world in the years to come will depend upon their
relationships with one another. It is a barren and
provincial statesmanship that loses sight of such
things I

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 288

The future, the immediate future, will bring us
squarely face to face with many great and exacting
problems which will search us through and through
whether we be able and ready to play the part in the
world that we mean to play. It will not bring us into
their presence slowly, gently, with ceremonious intro-
duction, but suddenly and at once, the moment the war
in Europe is over. They will be new problems, most
of them; many will be old problems in a new setting
and with new elements which we have never dealt with
or reckoned the force and meaning of before. They will
require for their solution new thinking, fresh courage
and resourcefulness, and in some matters radical recon-
siderations of policy. We must be ready to mobilize
our resources alike of brains and of materials.

It is not a future to be afraid of. It is, rather, a
future to stimulate and excite us to the display of the
best powers that are in us. We may enter it with con-
fidence when we are sure that we understand it, — ^and
we have provided ourselves already with the means of
understanding it.

Look first at what it will be necessary that the nations
of the world should do to make the days to come toler-
able and fit to live and work in; and then look at our
part in what is to follow and our own duty of prepara-
tion. For we must be prepared both in resources and
in policy.

There must be a just and settled peace, and we here
in America must contribute the full force of our en-
thusiasm and of our authority as a nation to the organi-
zation of that peace upon world-wide foundations that

284 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

cannot easily be shaken. No nation should be forced
to take sides in any quarrel in which its own honor and
integrity and the fortunes of its own people are not
involved; but no nation can any longer remain neutral
as against any willful disturbance of the peace of the
world. The effects of war can no longer be confined to
the areas of battle. No nation stands wholly apart in
interest when the life and interests of all nations are
thrown into confusion and peril. If hopeful and gen-
erous enterprise is to be renewed, if the healing and
helpful arts of Uf e are indeed to be revived when peace
comes again, a new atmosphere of justice and friendship
must be generated by means the world has never tried
before. The nations of the world must imite in joint
guarantees that whatever is done to disturb the whole
world's life must first be tested in the court of the
whole world's opinion before it is attempted.

These are the new foundations the world must build
for itself, and we must play our part in the reconstruc-
tion, generously and without too much thought of our
separate interests. We must make ourselves ready to
play it intelligently, vigorously and well.

One of the contributions we must make to the world's
peace is this: We must see to it that the people in our
insular possessions are treated in their own lands as
we would treat them here, and make the rule of the
United States mean the same thing everywhere, — ^the
same justice, the same consideration for the essential
rights of men. . . ...

PEACE NOTES TO THE BELLIGERENT GOV-
ERNMENTS, DATED DECEMBER 18, 1916

President Wilson's preoccupation from the outbreak of the European War
on August 1, 1814, to April 6, 1917, was two-fold; first, to bring this war to a
conclusion in the interest of our common humanity; second, to maintain peace-
ful relations between the United States, on the one hand, and the belligerents,
on the other. In pursuance of these purposes, he addressed the following mes-
sage to the nations at war, under date of August 5, 1914: ''As official head of
one of the powers signatory to The Hague Convention, I feel it to be my privilege
and my duty, under Article 3 of that Convention, to say to you in a spirit of
most earnest friendship that I should welcome the opportunity to act in the
interest of European peace, either now or at any other time that might be thought
more suitable, as an occasion to serve you and all concerned in a way that would
afford me lasting cause for gratitude and happiness."

These overtures were not accepted and apparently no encouragement offered
for their future presentation. President Wilson's action in this matter, however,
was then and later, in his more formal offer, in strict accordance with Article 3
of The Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes,
to which all the belligerent and neutral powers are contracting parties. This
article is so important that the material portion of it is quoted: "Powers,
strangers to the dispute, have the right to offer good offices or mediation, even
during the course of hostilities.

'* The exercise of this right can never be regarded by one or the other of the
parties in conflict as an unfriendly act."

On December 12, 1916, the Imperial German Government addressed a note to
all the neutral powers and to the Vatican, proposing "to enter forthwith into
peace negotiations" with the Allied Powers, and asking the neutral powers to
Ivring this communication to the notice of the belligerent governments. Terms
were not stated, but were apparently reserved, to be laid before a conference of
the belligerents when it should meet. A separate statement at the same time was
ma^ by the Government of Austria-Hungary, although Germany acted for its
allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. On December 18th President
Wilson directed the Secretary of State to transmit to the Imperial German Gov-
ernment and its allies and to all neutral governments, for their information, a
request that the belligerents thus addressed should make more definite proposals.
On the same day a communication was addressed to the Allied Powers and to all
neutral governments, for their information, requesting a specific statement of
the terms upon which they would agree to consider the conclusion of peace, in
order that, by this exchange of views, a basis might be found for negotiotions.
The belligerent governments answered the request, the Allies stating specific

285

286 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

terms, whereas Germany and its allies, while commending the ''noble initiatiye
of the President," refused to state terms to the President, while declaring them-
selves ready to enter into direct negotiations with the belligerents. Thus:

'' A direct exchange of views appears to the Imperial' Government as the
most suitable way of arriving at the desired result. . . .

" It is also the view of the Imperial Government that the great work for
the prevention of future wars can first be taken up only after the ending of the
present conflict of exhaustion."

The Secbetaby of State to Ambassadob Gebabd^

Depabtment of State,
Washington, December 18, 1916.
The President directs me to send you the following
conmiiinication to be presented immediately to the Min-
ister of Foreign Affairs of the Government to which
you are accredited:

"The President of the United States has instructed
me to suggest to the Imperial German Government a
course of action with regard to the present war which
he hopes that the Imperial Government will take under
consideration as suggested in the most friendly spirit
and as coming not only from a friend but also as coming
from the representative of a neutral nation whose inter-
ests have been most seriously affected by the war and
whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a
manifest necessity to determine how best to safeguard
those interests if the war is to continue.

"The suggestion which I am instructed to make the
President has long had it in mind to offer. He is some-
what embarrassed to offer it at this particular time
because it may now seem to have been prompted by a
desire to play a part in connection with the recent
overtures of the Central Powers. It has in fact been in

* Same, mutatis mutandis, to the American Diplomatic RepresentatiTea
accredited to the Governments of Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and
to all neutral Qovemments for their information.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 237

no way suggested by them in its origin and the Presi-
dent would have delayed offering it until those overtures
had been independently answered but for the fact that
it also concerns the question of peace and may best be
considered in connection with other proposals which
have the same end in view. The President can only
beg that his suggestion be considered entirely on its
own merits and as if it had been made in other cir-
cumstances.

"The President suggests that an early occasion be
sought to call out from all the nations now at war such
an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon
which the war might be concluded and the arrangements
which would be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty
against its renewal or the kindling of any similar con-
flict in the future as would make it possible frankly to
compare them. He is indifferent as to the means taken
to accomplish this. He would be happy himself to serve,
or even to take the initiative in its accomplishment, in
any way that might prove acceptable, but he has no
desire to determine the method or the instrumentality.
One way will be as acceptable to him as another if only
the great object he has in mind be attained.

"He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact
that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents
on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the
same, as stated in general terms to their own people and
to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and
privileges of weak peoples and small states as secure
against aggression or denial in the future as the rights
and privileges of the great and powerful states now at
war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future,
along with all other nations and peoples, against the
recurrence of wars like this, and against aggression of
selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous

238 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve
an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying sus-
picions; but each is ready to consider the formation of
a league of nations to insure peace and justice through-
out the world. Before that final step can be taken^
however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues
of the present war upon terms which will certainly safe-
guard the independence, the territorial integrity, and
the political and commercial freedom of the nations
involved.

**In the measures to be taken to secure the future
peace of the world the people and Government of the
United States are as vitally and as directly interested
as the Governments now at war. Their interest, more-
over, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller
and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong
and violence is as quick and ardent as that of any other
people or Government. They stand ready, and even
eager, to co-operate in the accomplishment of these
ends, when the war is over, with every influence and
resource at their command. But the war must first be
concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded
they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President
does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out
their intimate interest in its conclusion, lest it should
presently be too late to accomplish the greater things
which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neu-
tral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be ren-
dered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an
injury be done civilization itself which can never be
atoned for or repaired.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 239

all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as
those at war are ready to play their full responsible
part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards
undefined ends by slow attrition until the one group of
belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after
million of hmnan lives must continue to be offered up
until on the one side or the other there are no more
to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never
cool and despairs engendered from which there can be
no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert
of free peoples wiU be rendered vain and idle.

**The life of the entire world has been profoundly
affected. Every part of the great family of mankind
has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented
contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can
be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be
safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete
objects for which it is being waged have never been
definitely stated.

**The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has
been said, stated those objects in general terms. But,
stated in general terms, they seem the same on both
sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of
either side avowed the precise objects which would, if
attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had
been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture
what definitive results, what actual exchange of guaran-
ties, what political or territorial changes or readjust-
ments, what stage of miUtary success even, would bring
the war to an end.

"It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that
the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on
the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not
so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an inter-
change of views would clear the way at least for confer-

240 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

ence and make the permanent concord of the nations a
hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations
immediately practicable.

**The President is not proposing peace; he is not
even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that
soimdings be taken in order that we may learn, the
neutral nations with the belligerent, how near the haven
of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an
intense and increasing longing. He believes that the
spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks
will be understood by all concerned, and he confidently
hopes for a response which will bring a new light into
the affairs of the world.''

Lansing.

suggestion to the entente allies that terms of peace be

discussed

The Secretary of State to Ambassador Page ^

Department op State,
Washington, December 18, 1916.

The President directs me to send you the following
communication to be presented immediately to the Min-
ister of Foreign Affairs of the Government to which
you are accredited:

**The President of the United States has instructed
me to suggest to His Majesty's Government a course of
action with regard to the present war which he hopes
that the British Government will take under considera-

^ Same, mutatis mutandis, to the American Diplomatic Representatives
accredited to the Governments of France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Belgium,
Montenefrro, Portu^l, Roumania, and Servia, and to all neutral Governments
for their information.

242 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

**He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact
that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents
on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the
same^ as stated in general terms to their own people and
to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and
privileges of weak peoples and small States as secure
against aggression or denial in the future as the rights
and privileges of the great and powerful States now at
war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future,
along with all other nations and peoples, against the
recurrence of wars like this and against aggression of
selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous
of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve
an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying sus-
picions; but each is ready to consider the formation of
a league of nations to insure peace and justice through-
out the world. Before that final step can be taken,
however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues
of the present war upon terms which will certainly safe-
guard the independence, the territorial integrity, and
the political and commercial freedom of the nations
involved.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 24>3

does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out
their intimate interest in its conclusion, lest it should
presently be too late to accomplish the greater things
which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neu-
tral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be ren-
dered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an
injury be done civilization itself which can never be
atoned for or repaired.

**The President therefore feels altogether justified in
suggesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison
of views as to the terms which must precede those ulti-
mate arrangements for the peace of the world, which
all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as
those at war are ready to play their full responsible
part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards
undefined ends by slow attrition until the one group of
belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after
million of hmnan lives must continue to be offered up
until on the one side or the other there are no more
to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never
cool and despairs engendered from which there can be
no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert
of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle.

244 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

either side avowed the precise objects which would, if
attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had
been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture
what definitive results, what actual exchange of guaran-
tees, what political or territorial changes or readjust-
ments, what stage of military success even, would bring
the war to an end.

**It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that
the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on
the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not
so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an inter-
change of views would clear the way at least for confer-
ence and make the permanent concord of the nations a
hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations
immediately practicable.

**The President is not proposing peace; he is not
even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that
soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the
neutral nations with the belligerent, how near the haven
of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an
intense and increasing longing. He believes that the
spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks
will be imderstood by all concerned, and he confidently
hopes for a response which will bring a new light into
the affairs of the world.''

Lansing.

ADDRESS ON THE ESSENTIALS OF PERMA-
NENT PEACE, DELIVERED TO THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

JANUARY 22, 1917

In the Presidency of Washington and of Adams it was the custom of the
President to repair to the Congress to read in person his messages, which were
therefore addresses to the Ck)ngress by the President. President Jefferson
conceived it to be more democratic and in keeping with the position of the
President to send, rather than to deliver in person, his messages; and his
successors followed his initiative, which seemed to have become both a prece-
dent and a custom. President Wilson, however, returned to the practice of
the Fathers with his address to the Ck)ngress on Mexican affairs, August 27,
1913, and each succeeding message of importance has been delivered by him
in person, whether it be special or whether it be annual.

The Senate of the United States was, in foreign affairs, meant to be an ad-
visory as well as a controlling body, controlling in the sense that all treaties and
conventions negotiated with the President are mere proposals until their rati-
fication has been advised and consented to by two-thirds of the Senators present
at the time of the vote taken upon their disposition. President Washington
was wont to consult in person the Senate, and President Wilson revived this
custom by the address under consideration.

Gentlemen of the Senate:

On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an
identic note to the governments of the nations now at
war requesting them to state, more definitely than they
had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the
terms upon which they would deem it possible to make
peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights
of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most
vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy. The
Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely
that they were ready to meet their antagonists in con-
ference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente Powers
have replied much more definitely and have stated, in
general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to

845

246 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts
of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable
conditions of a satisfactory settlement. We are that
much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which
shall end the present war. We are that much nearer
the discussion of the international concert which must
thereafter hold the world at peace. In every discussion
of the peace that must end this war it is taken for
granted that that peace must be followed by some defi-
nite concert of power which will make it virtually
impossible that any such catastrophe should ever over-
whelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane
and thoughtful man must take that for granted.

I have sought this opportunity to address you be-
cause I thought that I owed it to you, as the council
associated with me in the final determination of our
international obligations, to disclose to you without
reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking
form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Govern-
ment in the days to come when it will be necessary to
lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of
peace among the nations-
It is inconceivable that the people of the United
States should play no part in that great enterprise.
To take part in such a service will be the opportunity
for which they have sought to prepare themselves by the
very principles and purposes of their poUty and the
approved practices of their Government ever since the
days when they set up a new nation in the high and
honorable hope that it might in all that it was and did
show mankind the way to liberty. They cannot in

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 247

honor withhold the service to which they are now about
to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But
they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of
the world to state the conditions under which they will
feel free to render it.

That service is nothing less than this, to add their
authority and their power to the authority and force
of other nations to guarantee peace and justice through-
out the world. Such a settlement cannot now be long
postponed. It is right that before it comes this Govern-
ment should frankly formulate the conditions upon
which it would feel justified in asking our people to
approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League
for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those con-
ditions.

The present war must first be ended; but we owe it
io candor and to a just regard for the opinion of man-
kind to say that, so far as our participation in guaran-
tees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal
of difference in what way and upon what terms it is
^nded. The treaties and agreements which bring it to
an end must embody terms which will create a peace
that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that
will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace
that will serve the several interests and immediate aims
of the nations engaged. We shall have no voice in
determining what those terms shall be, but we shall, I
feel sure, have a voice in determining whether they
shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a
universal covenant; and our judgment upon what is
fundamental and essential as a condition precedent to

248 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

permanency should be spoken now, not afterwards when
it may be too late.

No covenant of co-operative peace that does not
include the peoples of the New World can sufl&ce to
keep the future safe against war; and yet there is only
one sort of peace that the peoples of America could join
in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be
elements that engage the confidence and satisfy the prin-
ciples of the American governments, elements consistent
with their political faith and with the practical convic-
tions which the peoples of America have once for all
embraced and undertaken to defend.

I do not mean to say that any American government
would throw any obstacle in the way of any terms of
peace the governments now at war might agree upon,
or seek to upset them when made, whatever they might
be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace
between the belligerents will not satisfy even the bellig-
erents themselves. Mere agreements may not make
peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary that a
force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of
the settlement so much greater than the force of any
nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or
projected that no nation, no probable combination of
nations could face or withstand it. If the peace pres-
ently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made
secure by the organized major force of mankind.

The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will
determine whether it is a peace for which such a guar-
antee can be secured. The question upon which the
whole future peace and policy of the world depends is

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 249

this : Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure
peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be
only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will
guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of
the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be
a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power,
but a community of power ; not organized rivalries, but
an organized common peace.

Fortunately we have received very explicit assur-
ances on this point. The statesmen of both of the groups
of nations now arrayed against one another have said,
in terms that could not be misinterpreted, that it was
no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their
antagonists. But the implications of these assurances
may not be equally clear to all, — ^may not be the same
on both sides of the water. I think it will be service-
able if I attempt to set forth what we understand them
to be.

They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace with-
out victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that
I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon
it and that it may be imderstood that no other inter-
pretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to
face realities and to face them without soft conceal-
ments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser,
a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would
be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intoler-
able sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a
bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest,
not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a
peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very

260 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

principle of which is equality and a common participa-
tion in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the
right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a last-
ing peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of
territory or of racial and national allegiance.

The equality of nations upon which peace must be
founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights;
the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor
imply a difference between big nations and small, be-
tween those that are powerful and those that are weak.
Right must be based upon the common strength, not
upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose
concert peace wiU depend. EquaHty of territory or of
resources there of course cannot be ; nor any other sort
of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and
legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But
no one asks or expects anything more than an equality
of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life,
not for equipoises of power.

And there is a deeper thing involved than even
equality of right among organized nations. No peace
can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and
accept the principle that governments derive all their
just powers from the consent of the governed, and that
no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from
sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I
take it for granted, for instance, if I may venture upon
a single example, that statesmen everywhere are agreed
that there should be a united, independent, and auton-
omous Poland, and that henceforth inviolable security
of life, of worship, and of industrial and social devel-

262 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

what radical reconsideration of many of the rules of
international practice hitherto thought to be established
may be necessary in order to make the seas indeed free
and common in practically all circumstances for the use
of mankind, but the motive for such changes is con-
vincing and compelling. There can be no trust or
intimacy between the peoples of the world without them.
The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse of nations
is an essential part of the process of peace and of devel-
opment. It need not be difficult either to define or to
secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of
the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement con-
cerning it.

It is a problem closely connected with the limitation
of naval armaments and the co-operation of the navies
of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe.
And the question of limiting naval armaments opens the
wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limi-
tation of armies and of all programs of miUtary prep-
aration. Difficult and delicate as these questions are,
they must be faced with the utmost candor and decided
in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come
with healing in its wings, and come to stay. Peace can-
not be had without concession and sacrifice. There can
be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if
great preponderating armaments are henceforth to con-
tinue here and there to be built up and maintained.
The statesmen of the world must plan for peace and
nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to
it as they have planned for war and made ready for
pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 263

whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and
intensely practical question connected with the future
fortunes of nations and of mankind.

I have spoken upon these great matters without
reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has
seemed to me to be necessary if the world's yearning
desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and
utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high
authority amongst all the peoples of the world who is
at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speak-
ing as an individual, and yet I am speaking also, of
course, as the responsible head of a great government,
and I feel confident that I have said what the people
of the United States would wish me to say. May I not
add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speak-
ing for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation
and of every program of liberty? I would fain believe
that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind
everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity
to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and
ruin they see to have come already upon the persons
and the homes they hold most dear.

And in holding out the expectation that the people
and Government of the United States will join the other
civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the per-
manence of peace upon such terms as I have named I
speak with the greater boldness and confidence because
it is clear to every man who can think that there is in
this promise no breach in either our traditions or our
policy as a nation, but a fulfillment, rather, of all that
we have professed or striven for.

.> - VILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

-._:$,, AS it were, that the nations should

. ...l-.)l.»t the doctrine of President Monroe

. ■ Lie world : that no nation should seek

. '.tv over any other nation or people, but

. .0 should be left free to determine its
> own way of development, unhindered,

auifraid, the little along with the great

.%;<

:v't'v^njt that all nations henceforth avoid

^iuui^*es which would draw them into com-

. . A^wor, catch them in a net of intrigue and

,x wlrv. Hud disturb their own affairs with influ-

:.,iuui\l from without. There is no entangling

., li .1 vvncert of power. When all unite to act

\ vLiiio ist^nse and with the same purpose all act

^, oaimon interest and are free to live their own

. . .;.vicv » common protection.

,ia luvposing government by the consent of the

. , , Liv\i ; that freedom of the seas which in inter-

.. ;.a! v\nUVrence after conference representatives of

^ ; Ml tod States have urged with the eloquence of

Nov ^^^u* rt^^ ^^^ convinced disciples of liberty; and

u,, uKKloration of armaments which makes of armies

, ,^; luiNios a power for order merely, not an instru-

,.xJii ^*f aggression or of selfish violence.

rt\\\^t^ are American principles, American policies.
v\ V o\MiUl stand for no others. And they are also the
\»MMoivl^*S5 ^^d policies of forward looking men and
vw'iuon everywhere, of every modem nation, of every
v4»l\>jhtoued community. They are the principles of
\iK(ukind and must prevail.

ADDRESS ANNOUNCING THE SEVERANCE
OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN
THE UNITED STATES AND THE IMPE-
RIAL GERMAN GOVERNMENT, DE-
LIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION
OF THE TWO HOUSES OF
CONGRESS, FEBRUARY

8, 1917

Gentlemen of the Congress:

The Imperial German Govermnent on the thirty-
first of January annoimced to this Government and to
the governments of the other neutral nations that on
and after the first day of February, the present month,
it would adopt a policy with regard to the use of sub-
marines against all shipping seeking to pass through
certain designated areas of the high seas to which it is
clearly my duty to call your attention.

Let me remind the Congress that on the eighteenth
of April last, in view of the sinking on the twenty-
fourth of March of the cross-channel passenger steamer
Sussex by a German submarine, without sinnmons or
warning, and the consequent loss of the lives of sev-
eral citizens of the United States who were passengers
aboard her, this Government addressed a note to the
Imperial German Government in which it made the
following declaration:

**If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Govern-
ment to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare

255

266 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines
without regard to what the Government of the United
States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules
of international law and the universally recognized dic-
tates of humanity, the Government of the United States
is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one
course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government
should now immediately declare and effect an abandon-
ment of its present methods of submarine warfare
against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the Gt)v-
ernment of the United States can have no choice but
to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire
altogether/'

In reply to this declaration the Imperial German
Government gave this Government the following assur-
ance:

"The German Government is prepared to do its
utmost to confine the operations of war for the rest of
its duration to the fighting forces of the belligerents,
thereby also insuring the freedom of the seas, a prin-
ciple upon which the German Government believes, now
as before, to be in agreement with the Government of
the United States.

"The German Government, guided by this idea,
notifies the Government of the United States that the
German naval forces have received the following orders :
In accordance with the general principles of visit and
search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized
by international law, such vessels, both within and with-
out the area declared as naval war zone, shall not be
sunk without warning and without saving human lives,
unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance.

"But,'' it added, "neutrals cannot expect that Ger-
many, forced to fight for her existence, shall, for the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 257

sake of neutral interest, restrict the use of an effective
weapon if her enemy is permitted to continue to apply
at will methods of warfare violating the rules of inter-
national law. Such a demand would be incompatible
with the character of neutrality, and the German Gov-
ernment is convinced that the Government of the United
States does not think of making such a demand, know-
ing that the Government of the United States has
repeatedly declared that it is determined to restore the
principle of the freedom of the seas, from whatever
quarter it has been violated/'

To this the Government of the United States replied
on the eighth of May, accepting, of course, the assur-
ances given, but adding,

**The Government of the United States feels it
necessary to state that it takes it for granted that the
Imperial German Government does not intend to imply
that the maintenance of its newly announced policy is
in any way contingent upon the course or result of
diplomatic negotiations between the Government of the
United States and any other belligerent Government,
notwithstanding the fact that certain passages in the
Imperial Government's note of the 4th instant might
appear to be susceptible of that construction. In order,
however, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, the
Government of the United States notifies the Imperial
Government that it cannot for a moment entertain, much
less discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval
authorities for the rights of citizens of the United States
upon the high seas should in any way or in the slightest
degree be made contingent upon the conduct of any
other Government affecting the rights of neutrals and
noncombatants. Responsibility in such matters is sin-
gle, not joint; absolute, not relative/'

268 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

To this note of the eighth of May the Imperial Ger-
man Government made no reply.

On the thirty-first of January, the Wednesday of
the present week, the German Ambassador handed to the
Secretary of State, along with a formal note, a memo-
randum which contains the following statement:

**The Imperial Government, therefore, does not
doubt that the Government of the United States will
understand the situation thus forced upon Germany
by the Entente- Allies' brutal methods of war and by
their determination to destroy the Central Powers, and
that the Government of the United States will further
realize that the now openly disclosed intentions of the
Entente-Allies give back to Germany the freedom of
action which she reserved in her note addressed to the
Government of the United States on May 4, 1916.

** Under these circumstances Germany will meet the
illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly preventing
after February 1, 1917, in a zone around Great Britain,
France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean all
navigation, that of neutrals included, from and to Eng-
land and from and to France, etc., etc. All ships met
within the zone will be sunk.''

I think that you will agree with me that, in view
of this declaration, which suddenly and without prior
intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the
solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's
note of the fourth of May, 1916, this Government has
no alternative consistent with the dignity and honor
of the United States but to take the course which, in
its note of the eighteenth of April, 1916, it announced
that it would take in the event that the German Govern-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 269

ment did not declare and effect an abandonment of the
methods of submarine warfare which it was then em-
ploying and to which it now purposes again to resort.

I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State to
announce to His Excellency the German Ambassador
that all diplomatic relations between the United States
and the German Empire are severed, and that the
American Ambassador at Berlin will immediately be
withdrawn; and, in accordance with this decision, to
hand to His Excellency his passports.

Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the Ger-
man Government, this sudden and deeply deplorable
renunciation of its assurances, given this Government at
one of the most critical moments of tension in the rela-
tions of the two governments, I refuse to believe that
it is the intention of the German authorities to do in
fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty
to do. I cannot bring myself to believe that they will
indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between
their people and our own or to the solemn obligations
which have been exchanged between them and destroy
American ships and take the lives of American citizens
in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval program
they have announced their intention to adopt. Only
actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it
even now.

If this inveterate confidence on my part in the
sobriety and prudent foresight of their purpose should
unhappily prove unfounded; if American ships and
American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval
commanders in heedless contravention of the just and

260 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

reasonable understandiiigs of interiiatioiial law and the
obvious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty of
coming again before the Congress, to ask that authority
be given me to use any means that may be necessary
for the protection of our seamen and our people in the
prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on
the high seas. I can do nothing less. I take it for
granted that all neutral governments will take the same
course.

We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Im-
perial German Government. We are the sincere friends
of the German people and earnestly desire to remain
at peace with the Government which speaks for them.
We shaU not believe that they are hostile to us unless
and until we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose
nothing more than the reasonable defense of the un-
doubted rights of our people. We wish to serve no
selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in
thought and in action to the immemorial principles of
our people which I sought to express in my address to
the Senate only two weeks ago, — seek merely to vindi-
cate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested
life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant
we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of
willful injustice on the part of the Government of
Germany 1

ADDRESS ON ARMED NEUTRALITY, DELIV-

ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE

TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS,

FEBRUARY 26, 1917

In the following address President Wilson evidently still hoped that some
form of defensive action on the part of the United States would cause the
Imperial German Government to reflect and to mend its ways before war actually
broke out between the two countries. President Wilson apparently had in mind
the armed neutrality of 1780 and 1800 and the action of the United States
against France in President Adams' administration, by which American mer-
chantmen were armed to defend themselves against attack of French cruisers
unlawfully overhauling and capturing American vessels upon the high seas.

In accordance with American precedent and with the conclusion reached by
the President in his address imder consideration. Secretary of State Lansing gave
to the press the following statement on March 12, 1017:

"The Department of State has to-4ay sent the following statement to all
foreign missions in Washington for their information:

"In view of the announcement of the Imperial German Government on
January 31, 1017, that all ships, those of neutrals included, met within certain
zones of the high seas, would be sunk without any precautions being taken for
the safety of the persons on board, and without the exercise of visit and search,
the Government of the United States has determined to place upon all American
merchant vessels sailing through the barred areas an armed guard for the pro-
tection of the vessels and the lives of the persons on board."

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have again asked the privilege of addressing you
because we are moving through critical times during
which it seems to me to be my duty to keep in close
touch with the Houses of Congress, so that neither coun-
sel nor action shall run at cross purposes between us.

On the third of February I oflScially informed you of
the sudden and unexpected action of the Imperial Ger-
man Government in declaring its intention to disregard
the promises it had made to this Government in April
last and undertake immediate submarine operations

261

262 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

against all commerce, whether of beUigerents or of neu-
trals, that should seek to approach Great Britain and
Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or the harbors
of the eastern Mediterranean, and to conduct those
operations without regard to the established restrictions
of international practice, without regard to any con-
siderations of humanity even which might interfere
with their object. That policy was forthwith put into
practice. It has now been in active execution for nearly
four weeks.

Its practical results are not yet fully disclosed. The
commerce of other neutral nations is suffering severely,
but not, perhaps, very much more severely than it was
already suffering before the first of February, when
the new policy of the Imperial Government was put into
operation. We have asked the co-operation of the other
neutral governments to prevent these depredations, but
so far none of them has thought it wise to join us in
any common course of action. Our own commerce has
suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in
fact, rather because so many of our ships are timidly
keeping to their home ports than because American
ships have been sunk.

Two American vessels have been sunk, the Housd-
tonic and the Lyman M. Law. The case of the
Housatonic, which was carrying foodstuffs consigned
to a London firm, was essentially like the case of the
Frye, in which, it will be recalled, the German Govern-
ment admitted its liability for damages, and the lives
of the crew, as in the case of the Frye, were safeguarded
with reasonable care. The case of the Law, which was

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 268

carrying lemon-box staves to Palermo, disclosed a ruth-
lessness of method which deserves grave condemnation,
but was accompanied by no circumstances which might
not have been expected at any time in connection with
the use of the submarine against merchantmen as the
German Government has used it.

In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in
with regard to the actual conduct of the German sub-
marine warfare against commerce and its effects upon
our own ships and people is substantially the same that
it was when I addressed you on the third of February,
except for the tying up of our shipping in our own
ports because of the unwillingness of our shipowners
4o risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate
protection, and the very serious congestion of our com-
merce which has resulted, a congestion which is growing
rapidly more and more serious every day. This in
itself might presently accomplish, in effect, what the
new German submarine orders were meant to accom-
plish, so far as we are concerned. We can only say,
therefore, that the overt act which I have ventured to
hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has
not occurred.

But, while this is happily true, it must be admitted
that there have been certain additional indications and
expressions of purpose on the part of the German press
and the German authorities which have increased rather
than lessened the impression that, if our ships and our
people are spared, it will be because of fortunate cir-
cumstances or because the commanders of the German
submarines which they may happen to encounter exer-

264 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

cise an unexpected discretion and restraint rather than
because of the instructions under which those com-
manders are acting. It would be foolish to deny that
the situation is fraught with the gravest possibilities
and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see that
the necessity for definite action may come at any time,
if we are in fact, and not in word merely, to defend
our elementary rights as a neutral nation. It would be
most imprudent to be unprepared.

I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful of the
fact that the expiration of the term of the present Con-
gress is immediately at hand, by constitutional limita-
tion; and that it would in all likelihood require an
unusual length of time to assemble and organize the
Congress which is to succeed it. I feel that I ought, in
view of that fact, to obtain from you full and immediate
assurance of the authority which I may need at any
moment to exercise. No doubt I already possess that
authority without special warrant of law, by the plain
implication of my constitutional duties and powers ; but
I prefer, in the present circumstances, not to act upon
general implication. I wish to feel that the authority
and the power of the Congress are behind me in what-
ever it may become necessary for me to do. We are
jointly the servants of the people and must act to-
gether and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and
interpret it.

No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must
defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the
midst of the present trying circumstances, with discre-
tion but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 265

method and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the
occasion, if occasion should indeed arise. Since it has
unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral
rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted
infringements they are suffering at the hands of Ger-
many, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality,
which we shall know how to maintain and for which
there is abundant American precedent.

It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be neces-
sary to put armed force anywhere into action. The
American people do not desire it, and our desire is not
different from theirs. I am sure that they will under-
stand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose
I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in
everything I do. I am anxious that the people of the
nations at war also should tmderstand and not mistrust
us. I hope that I need give no further proofs and assur-
ances than I have already given throughout nearly three
years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace
and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am
able. I am not now proposing or contemplating war or
any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that
you will accord me by your own vote and definite be-
stowal the means and the authority to safeguard in
practice the right of a great people who are at peace
and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights
of peace to follow the pursuits of peace in quietness
and good will, — ^rights recognized time out of mind by
all the civilized nations of the world. No course of my
choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come
only by the willful acts and aggressions of others.

266 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

You will understand why I can make no definite pro-
posals or forecasts of action now and must ask for your
supporting authority in the most general terms. The
form in which action may become necessary cannot yet
be foreseen. I believe that the people will be willing
to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and
in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have
themselves displayed throughout these trying months;
and it is in that belief that I request that you wiU
authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defen-
sive arms, should that become necessary, and with the
means of using them, and to employ any other instru-
mentalities or methods that may be necessary and ade-
quate to protect our ships and our people in their
legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I request
also that you will grant me at the same time, along
with the powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me
to provide adequate means of protection where they are
lacking, including adequate insurance against the pres-
ent war risks.

I have spoken of our commerce and of the legiti-
mate errands of our people on the seas, but you wiM
not be misled as to my main thought, the thought that
lies beneath these phrases and gives them dignity and
weight. It is not of material interests merely that we
are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human
rights, chief of all the right of life itself. I am think-
ing, not only of the rights of Americans to go and come
about their proper business by way of the sea, but also
of something much deeper, much more fundamental
than that. I am thinking of those rights of hxmianity

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 267

without which there is no civilization. My theme is of
those great principles of compassion and of protection
which mankind has sought to throw about human lives,
the lives of non-combatants, the lives of men who are
peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of
the world quick and vital, the lives of women and chil-
dren and of those who supply the labor which ministers
to their sustenance. We are speaking of no selfish
material rights but of rights which our hearts support
and whose foundation is that righteous passion for jus-
tice upon which all law, all structures alike of family,
of state, and of mankind must rest, as upon the ulti-
mate base of our existence and our liberty. I cannot
imagine any man with American principles at his heart
hesitating to defend these things.

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, WASHING-

TON, MARCH 5, 1917

My Fellow Citizens:

The four years which have elapsed since last I stood
in this place have been crowded with counsel and action
of the most vital interest and consequence. Perhaps no
equal period in our history has been so fruitful of im-
portant reforms in our economic and industrial life or
so full of significant changes in the spirit and purpose
of our political action. We have sought very thought-
fully to set our house in order, correct the grosser errors
and abuses of our industrial life, liberate and quicken
the processes of our national genius and energy, and lift
our politics to a broader view of the people's essential
interests. It is a record of singular variety and singu-
lar distinction. But I shall not attempt to review it.
It speaks for itself and will be of increasing influence
as the years go by. This is not the time for retrospect.
It is time, rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes
concerning the present and the immediate future.

Although we have centered counsel and action with
such unusual concentration and success upon the great
problems of domestic legislation to which we addressed
ourselves four years ago, other matters have more and
more forced themselves upon our attention, matters
lying outside our own life as a nation and over which
we had no control, but which, despite our wish to keep

268

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 269

free of them, have drawn us more and more irresistibly
into their own current and influence.

It has been impossible to avoid them. They have
affected the life of the whole world. They have shaken
men everywhere with a passion and an apprehension
they never knew before. It has been hard to preserve
calm counsel while the thought of our own people swayed
this way and that under their influence. We are a com-
posite and cosmopolitan people. We are of the blood
of all the nations that are at war. The currents of our
thoughts as well as the currents of our trade run quick
at all seasons back and forth between us and them.
The war inevitably set its mark from the first alike
upon our minds, our industries, our commerce, our
politics, and our social action. To be indifferent to it
or independent of it was out of the question.

And yet all the while we have been conscious that
we were not part of it. In that consciousness, despite
many divisions, we have drawn closer together. We
have been deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have
not wished to wrong or injure in return ; have retained
throughout the consciousness of standing in some sort
apart, intent upon an interest that transcended the
immediate issues of the war itself. As some of the
injuries done us have become intolerable we have still
been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that
we were not ready to demand for all mankind, — ^fair
dealing, justice, the freedom to live and be at ease
against organized wrong.

It is in this spirit and with this thought that we
have grown more and more aware, more and more cer-

270 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

tain that the part we wished to play was the part of
those who mean to vindicate and fortify peace. We
have been obliged to arm ourselves to make good our
claim to a certain Tninimum of right and of freedom
of action. We stand firm in armed neutrality since it
seems that in no other way we can demonstrate what
it is we insist upon and cannot forego. We may even
be drawn on, by circumstances, not by our own purpose
or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as
we see them and a more immediate association with
the great struggle itself. But nothing will alter our
thought or our purpose. They are too clear to be
obscured. They are too deeply rooted in the principles
of our national life to be altered. We desire neither
conquest nor advantage. We wish nothing that can be
had only at the cost of another people. We have always
professed unselfish purpose and we covet the opportunity
to prove that our professions are sincere.

There are many things still to do at home, to clarify
our own politics and give new vitality to the industrial
processes of our own life, and we shall do them as time
and opportunity serve; but we realize that the greatest
things that remain to be done must be done with the
whole world for stage and in co-operation with the wide
and universal forces of mankind, and we are nriRlring
our spirits ready for those things. They will follow in
the immediate wake of the war itself and will set civili-
zation up again. We are provincials no longer. The
tragical events of the thirty months of vital turmoil
through which we have just passed have made us citi-
zens of the world. There can be no turning back. Our

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 271

own fortunes as a nation are involved, whether we would
have it so or not.

And yet we are not the less Americans on that
account. We shall be the more American if we but
remain true to the principles in which we have been
bred. They are not the principles of a province or of
a single continent. We have known and boasted all
along that they were the principles of a liberated man-
kind. These, therefore, are the things we shall stand
for, whether in war or in peace:

That all nations are equally interested in the peace
of the world and in the political stability of free peo-
ples, and equally responsible for their maintenance;

That the essential principle of peace is the actual
equality of nations in all matters of right or privilege ;

That peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an
armed balance of power;

That governments derive all their just powers from
the consent of the governed and that no other powers
should be supported by the common thought, purpose,
or power of the family of nations.

That the seas should be equally free and safe for
the use of all peoples, under rules set up by common
agreement and consent, and that, so far as practicable,
they should be accessible to all upon equal terms ;

That national armaments should be limited to the
necessities of national order and domestic safety;

That the commimity of interest and of power upon
which peace must henceforth depend imposes upon each
nation the duty of seeing to it that all influences pro-
ceeding from its own citizens meant to encourage or

272 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

assist revolution in other states should be sternly and
effectually suppressed and prevented.

I need not argue these principles to you, my fellow
countrymen: they are your own, part and parcel of
your own thinking and your own motive in affairs.
They spring up native amongst us. Upon this as a
platform of purpose and of action we can stand together.

And it is imperative that we should stand together.
We are being forged into a new unity amidst the fires
that now blaze throughout the world. In their ardent
heat we shall, in God's providence, let us hope, be
purged of faction and division, purified of the errant
hmnors of party and of private interest, and shall stand
forth in the days to come with a new dignity of national
pride and spirit. Let each man see to it that the dedi-
cation is in his own heart, the high purpose of the
Nation in his own mind, ruler of his own will and desire.

I stand here and have taken the high and solemn
oath to which you have been audience because the peo-
ple of the United States have chosen me for this august
delegation of power and have by their gracious judg-
ment named me their leader in affairs. I know now
what the task means. I realize to the full the responsi-
bility which it involves. I pray God I may be given the
wisdom and the prudence to do my duty in the true
spirit of this great people. I am their servant and can
succeed only as they sustain and guide me by their con-
fidence and their counsel. The thing I shall count upon,
the thing without which neither counsel nor action will
avail, is the unity of America, — an America united in
feeling, in purpose, and in its vision of duty, of oppor-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 278

tuniiy, and of service. We are to beware of all men
who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the
Nation to their own private profit or use them for the
building up of private power; beware that no faction
or disloyal intrigue break the harmony or embarrass the
spirit of our people; beware that our Government be
kept pure and incorrupt in all its parts. United alike
in the conception of our duty and in the high resolve
to perform it in the face of all men, let us dedicate our-
selves to the great task to which we must now set our
hand. For myself I beg your tolerance, your counte-
nance, and your united aid. The shadows that now lie
dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall
walk with the light all about us if we be but true to
ourselves, — ^to ourselves as we have wished to be known
in the counsels of the world and in the thought of all
those who love liberty and justice and the right exalted.

ADDRESS RECOMMENDING THE DECLARA-
TION OF A STATE OF WAR BETWEEN
THE UNITED STATES AND THE IM-
PERIAL GERMAN GOVERNMENT,
DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES-
SION OF THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS, APRIL

2, 1917

In the intenral between February 26th and April 2d, the President had oome
to the conclusion that neutrality was incompatible with the undoubted rights,
and therefore the best interests, of the United States. Germany had already
drawn the sword and was in a state of war, although not declared, with the
United States. President Wilson decided that this situation should be regular-
ized by a declaration on the part of the United States that a state of war
existed between the Imperial German €k>vemment and the United States. He
therefore recommended such action in his address of April 2d, and on the 6th
instant the Congress passed the following joint resolution, carrying into effect
his recommendation:

"Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated
acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of
America: Therefore be it

"Resolved hy the Senate and Hottae of RepreeentativeB of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between
the United States and the Imperial Government which has thus been thrust
upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the President
be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and
military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to
carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the
conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are
hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session
because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy
to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither
right nor constitutionally permissible that I should
assume the responsibility of making.

274

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 276

On the third of February last I officially laid before
you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial
German Government that on and after the first day of
February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints
of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink
every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of
Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of
Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies
of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed
to be the object of the German submarine warfare
earlier in the war, but since April of last year the
Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the com-
manders of its undersea craft in conformity with its
promise then given to us that passenger boats should
not be sunk and that due warning would be given to
all other vessels which its submarines might seek to
destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape
attempted, and care taken that their crews were given
at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open
boats. The precautions taken were meager and hap-
hazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance
after instance in the progress of the cruel and immanly
business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Ves-
sels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character,
their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been
ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and with-
out thought of help or mercy for those on board, the
vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belliger-
ents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to
the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium,

276 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

though the latter were provided with safe conduct
through the proscribed areas by the German Gk)vem-
ment itself and were distinguished by unmistakable
marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reck-
less lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such
things would in fact be done by any government that
had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of
civilized nations. International law had its origin in
the attempt to set up some law which would be respected
and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right
of dominion and where lay the free highways of the
world. By painful stage after stage has that law been
built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all
was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always
with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and con-
science of mankind demanded. This TniniTnuTn of right
the German Government has swept aside under the
plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no
weapons which it could use at sea except these which
it is impossible to employ as it is employing them with-
out throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or
of respect for the understandings that were supposed
to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now
thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and
serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale
destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women,
and children, engaged in pursuits which have always,
even in the darkest periods of modem history, been
deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid
for ; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 277

The present German submarine warfare against com-
merce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have
been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has
stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and
people of other neutral and friendly nations have been
sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way.
There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to
all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how
it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must
be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperate-
ness of judgment befitting our character and our motives
as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our
motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion
of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindi-
cation of right, of human right, of which we are only
a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth
of February last I thought that it would suflSce to assert
our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas
against unlawful interference, our right to keep our
people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neu-
trality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because sub-
marines are in effect outlaws when used as the German
submarines have been used against merchant shipping,
it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks
as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen
would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers,
visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is com-
mon prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity
indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have

278 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

shown their own intention. They must be dealt with
upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Govern-
ment denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all
within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even
in the defense of rights which no modem publicist has
ever before questioned their right to defend. The inti-
mation is conveyed that the armed guards which we
have placed on our merchant ships wiU be treated as
beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as
pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual
enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face
of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is
likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent;
it is practically certain to draw us into the war with-
out either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.
There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable
of making: we will not choose the path of submission
and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our
people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against
which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;
they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragi-
cal character of the step I am taking and of the grave
responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating
obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I
advise that the Congress declare the recent course of
the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing
less than war against the government and people of the
United States; that it formally accept the status of
belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it ; and that
it take immediate steps not only to put the country in

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 279

a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its
power and employ all its resources to bring the Gov-
ernment of the German Empire to terms and end the
war.

What this will involve is dear. It will involve the
utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action
with the governments now at war with Germany, and,
as incident to that, the extension to those governments
of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our
resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It
will involve the organization and mobilization of all the
material resources of the country to supply the mate-
rials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation
in the most abundant and yet the most economical and
ef&cient way possible. It will involve the immediate
full equipment of the navy in aU respects but particu-
larly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with
the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate
addition to the armed forces of the United States
already provided for by law in case of war at least
five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion,
be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to
service, and also the authorization of subsequent addi-
tional incremente of equal force so soon as they may be
needed and can be handled in training. It will involve
also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the
Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equi-
tably be sustained by the present generation, by well
conceived taxation.

I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxa-
tion because it seems to me that it would be most un-

880 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

wise to base the credits which will now be necessary
entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most
respectfully urge, to protect our people so fax as we
may against the very serious hardships and evils which
would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would
be produced by vast loans.

In carrying out the measures by which these things
are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in
mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in
our own preparation and in the equipment of our own
military forces with the duty, — for it will be a very
practical duty,— of supplying the nations already at
war with Germany with the materials which they can
obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are
in the field and we should help them in every way to
be effective there.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the
several executive departments of the Government, for
the consideration of your committees, measures for the
accomplishment of the several objects I have men-
tioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal
with them as having been framed after very careful
thought by the branch of the Government upon which
the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguard-
ing the nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous
things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all
the world what our motives and our objects are. My
own thought has not been driven from its habitual and
normal course by the unhappy events of the last two
months, and I do not believe that the thought of the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 281

natioii has been altered or clouded by them. I have
exactly the same things in mind now that I had in
mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-
second of January last; the same that I had in
mind when I addressed the Congress on the third
of February and on the twenty-sixth of February.
Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the prin-
ciples of peace and justice in the life of the world
as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up
amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of
the world such a concert of purpose and of action as
will henceforth insure the observance of those prin-
ciples. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable
where the peace of the world is involved and the free-
dom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and
freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments
backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by
their will, not by the will of their people. We have
seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We
are at the beginning of an age in which it will be
insisted that the same standards of conduct and of
responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among
nations and their governments that are observed among
the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We
have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and
friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their
government acted in entering this war. It was not
with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a
war determined upon as wars used to be determined
upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were no-

282 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

where consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked
and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups
of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their
fellow-men as pawns and tools. Self -governed nations
do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the
course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture
of affairs which wiU give them an opportunity to strike
and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully
worked out only under cover and where no one has the
right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of
deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from gener-
ation to generation, can be worked out and kept from
the light only within the privacy of courts or behind
the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and
privileged class. They are happily impossible where
public opinion commands and insists upon full informa-
tion concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be main-
tained except by a partnership of democratic nations.
No autocratic government could be trusted to keep
faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue
would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles
who could plan what they would and render account to
no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart.
Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their
honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests
of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been
added to our hope for the future peace of the world
by the wonderful and heartening things that have been

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 288

happening within the last few weeks in Russia ? Russia
was known by those who knew it best to have been
always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits
of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her
people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual
attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the
summit of her political structure, long as it had stood
and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not
in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and
now it has been shaken off and the great, generous
Russian people have been added in all their naive
majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for
freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here
is a fit partner for a League of Honor.

One of the things that has served to convince us that
the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be
our friend is that from the very outset of the present
war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even
our of&ces of government with spies and set criminal
Intrigues everywhere afoot against our national imity
of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries
and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its
spies were here even before the war began; and it is
imhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved
in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have
more than once come perilously near to disturbing the
peace and dislocating the industries of the country have
been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and
even under the personal direction of ofi&cial agents of
the Imperial Government accredited to the Government
of the United States. Even in checking these things

284 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put
the most generous interpretation possible upon them
because we knew that their source lay, not in any hos-
tile feeling or purpose of the German people towards
us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we
ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a
Government that did what it pleased and told its people
nothing. But they have played their part in serving
to convince us at last that that Government entertains
no real friendship for us and means to act against our
peace and security at its convenience. That it means
to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the inter-
cepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is
eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose
because we know that in such a government, following
such methods, we can never have a friend; and that
in the presence of its organized power, always lying in
wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there
can be no assured security for the democratic govern-
ments of the world. We are now about to accept gauge
of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if
necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check
and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad,
now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense
about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the
world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German
peoples included: for the rights of nations great and
small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose
their way of life and of obedience. The world must be
made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 285

upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We
have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest,
no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves,
no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall
freely make. We are but one of the champions of the
rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those
rights have been made as secure as the faith and the
freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without
selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what
we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I
feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents
without passion and ourselves observe with proud punc-
tilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess
to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with
the Imperial Government of Germany because they have
not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our
right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Govern-
ment has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement
and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine
warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial
German Government, and it has therefore not been i)os-
fiible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski,
the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government
by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-
Hungary; but that Government has not actually en-
gaged in warfare against citizens of the United States
on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at
least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with
the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only

286 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

where we are clearly forced into it because there are
no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves
as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness
because we act without animus, not in enmity towards
a people or with the desire to bring any injury or
disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition
to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside
all considerations of humanity and of right and is run-
ning amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere
friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing
so much as the early re-establishment of intimate rela-
tions of mutual advantage between us, — ^however hard
it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that
this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with
their present government through all these bitter months
because of that friendship, — exercising a patience and
forbearance which would otherwise have been impos-
sible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to
prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions
towards the millions of men and women of German birth
and native sympathy who live amongst us and share
our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all
who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Gov-
ernment in the hour of test. They are, most of them,
as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known
any other fealty or allegiance. They wiU be prompt to
stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who
may be of a different mind and purpose. If there
should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm
hand of stern repression ; but, if it lifts its head at all,

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 287

it will lift it only here and there and without counte-
nance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen
of the Congress, which I have performed in thus
addressing you. There are, it may be, many months
of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into
the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization
itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is
more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the
things which we have always carried nearest our
hearts, — ^for democracy, for the right of those who
submit to authority to have a voice in their own govern-
ments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for
a universal dominion of right by such a concert of
free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations
and make the world itself at last free. To such a task
we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
that we are and everything that we have, with the pride
of those who know that the day has come when America
is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the
principles that gave her birth and happiness and the
peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she
can do no other.

ADDRESS TO HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,
CONCERNING THE WAR WITH GER-
MANY, APRIL 15, 1917

My Fellow-Countrymen :

The entrance of our own beloved country into the
grim and terrible war for democracy and human rights
which has shaken the world creates so many problems
of national life and action which call for immediate
consideration and settlement that I hope you will per-
mit me to address to you a few words of earnest coun-
sel and appeal with regard to them.

We are rapidly putting our navy upon an effective
war footing and are about to create and equip a great
army, but these are the simplest parts of the great task
to which we have addressed ourselves. There is not a
single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause
we are fighting for. We are fighting for what we
believe and wish to be the rights of mankind and for
the future peace and security of the world. To do this
great thing worthily and successfully we must devote
ourselves to the service without regard to profit or
material advantage and with an energy and intelligence
that will rise to the level of the enterprise itself. We
must realize to the full how great the task is and how
many things, how many kinds and elements of capacity
and service and self-sacrifice, it involves.

288

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 289

These, then, are the things we must do, and do well,
besides fighting, — ^the things without which mere fight-
ing would be fruitless:

We must supply abundant food for ourselves and
for our armies and our seamen not only, but also for
a large part of the nations with whom we have now
made common cause, in whose support and by whose
sides we shall be fighting;

We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our
shipyards to carry to the other side of the sea, sub-
marines or no submarines, what wiU every day be needed
there, and abundant materials out of our fields and our
mines and our factories with which not only to clothe
and equip our own forces on land and sea but also to
clothe and support our people for whom the gallant
fellows under arms can no longer work, to help clothe
and equip the armies with which we are co-operating in
Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there
in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships
at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories
across the sea; steel out of which to make arms and
ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out
railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and
rolling stock to take the place of those every day going
to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for labor and for mili-
tary service ; everything with which the people of Eng-
land and Prance and Italy and Eussia have usually
supplied themselves but cannot now afford the men,
the materials, or the machinery to make.

It is evident to every thinking man that our indus-
tries, on the farms, in the shipyards, in the mines, in

290 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the factories, must be made more prolific and more
efficient than ever and that they must be more eco-
nomically managed and better adapted to the particular
requirements of our task than they have been ; and what
I want to say is that the men and the women who devote
their thought and their energy to these things will be
serving the country and conducting the fight for peace
and freedom just as truly and just as effectively as the
men on the battlefield or in the trenches. The industrial
forces of the country, men and women alike, wiU be
a great national, a great international, Service Army, —
a notable and honored host engaged in the service of
the nation and the world, the efficient friends and
saviors of free men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hun-
dreds of thousands, of men otherwise liable to military
service will of right and of necessity be excused from
that service and assigned to the fundamental, sustain-
ing work of the fields and factories and mines, and they
will be as much part of the great patriotic forces of the
nation as the men under fire.

I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing this word
to the farmers of the country and to all who work on
the farms: The supreme need of our own nation and
of the nations with which we are co-operating is an
abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs.
The importance of an adequate food supply, especially
for the present year, is superlative. Without abundant
food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war,
the whole great enterprise upon which we have em-
barked will break down and fail. The world's food
reserves are low. Not only during the present emer-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 291

gency but for some time after peace shall have come
both our own people and a large proportion of the
people of Europe must rely upon the harvests in
America. Upon the farmers of this country, therefore,
in large measure, rests the fate of the war and the fate
of the nations. May the nation not count upon them
to omit no step that will increase the production of their
land or that will bring about the most effectual co-oper-
ation in the sale and distribution of their products?
The time is short. It is of the most imperative impor-
tance that everything possible be done and done immedi-
ately to make sure of large harvests. I call upon young
men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the
land to accept and act upon this duty — ^to turn in hosts
to the farms and make certain that no pains and no
labor is lacking in this great matter.

I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South
to plant abundant foodstuffs as well as cotton. They
can show their patriotism in no better or more con-
vincing way than by resisting the great temptation of
the present price of cotton and helping, helping upon
a great scale, to feed the nation and the peoples every-
where who are fighting for their liberties and for our
own. The variety of their crops will be the visible
measure of their comprehension of their national duty.

The Government of the United States and the gov-
ernments of the several States stand ready to co-operate.
They will do everything possible to assist farmers in
securing an adequate supply of seed, an adequate force
of laborers when they are most needed, at harvest time,
and the means of expediting shipments of fertilizers

292 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

and farm machinery, as well as of the crops themselves
when harvested. The course of trade shall be as un-
hampered as it is possible to make it and there shall
be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food
supply by those who handle it on its way to the con-
sumer. This is our opportimity to demonstrate the
eflBciency of a great Democracy and we shall not fall
short of it!

This let me say to the middlemen of every sort,
whether they are handling our foodstuffs or our raw
materials of manufacture or the products of our mills
and factories : The eyes of the country will be especially
upon you. This is your opportimity for signal service,
efficient and disinterested. The country expects you,
as it expects all others, to forego unusual profits, to
organize and expedite shipments of supplies of every
kind, but especially of food, with an eye to the service
you are rendering and in the spirit of those who enlist
in the ranks, for their people, not for themselves. I
shall confidently expect you to deserve and win the con-
fidence of people of every sort and station.

To the men who run the railways of the country,
whether they be managers or operative employees, let
me say that the railways are the arteries of the nation's
life and that upon them rests the immense responsi-
bility of seeing to it that those arteries suffer no obstruc-
tion of any kind, no inefficiency or slackened power.
To the merchant let me suggest the motto, "Small
profits and quick service;'' and to the shipbuilder the
thought that the life of the war depends upon him.
The food and the war supplies must be carried across

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 298

the seas no matter how many ships are sent to the
hottom. The places of those that go down must be
supplied and supplied at once. To the miner let me
say that he stands where the farmer does: the work of
the world waits on him. If he slackens or fails, armies
and statesmen are helpless. He also is enlisted in the
great Service Army. The manufacturer does not need
to be told, I hope, that the nation looks to him to speed
and perfect every process; and I want only to remind
his employees that their service is absolutely indispen-
sable and is counted on by every man who loves the
country and its liberties.

Let me suggest, also, that everyone who creates or
cultivates a garden helps, and helps greatly, to solve
the problem of the feeding of the nations; and that
every housewife who practices strict economy puts her-
self in the ranks of those who serve the nation. This
is the time for America to correct her unpardonable
fault of wastefulness and extravagance. Let every man
and every woman assume the duty of careful, provident
use and expenditure as a public duty, as a dictate of
patriotism which no one can now expect ever to be
excused or forgiven for ignoring.

In the hope that this statement of the needs of the
nation and of the world in this hour of supreme crisis
may stimulate those to whom it comes and remind all
who need reminder of the solenm duties of a time such
as the world has never seen before, I beg that all editors
and publishers everywhere wiU give as prominent publi-
cation and as wide circulation as possible to this appeal.
I venture to suggest, also, to all advertising agencies

294 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

that they would perhaps render a very substantial and
timely service to the country if they would give it wide-
spread repetition. And I hope that clergymen will not
think the theme of it an unworthy or inappropriate
subject of comment and homily from their pulpits.
The supreme test of the nation has come. We must
all speaky act, and serve together!

WOODBOW WlIiSON.

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED
CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON,

MAY 12, 1917

In the course of the following address. President Wilson said, in speaking
of the war between the United States and the Imperial German Government:
" We have gone in with no special grievance of our own."

This phrase did not stand alone, and the text of which it was a part dearly
showed the President's thought to be that the war was commenced hy Germany
and that our liberty as well as the liberty of the world was at stake. It was
only in this sense he meant it to be understood that we had no special grievance.
As, however, the expression was seized upon as if it stood alone, the President
wrote on May 22, 1017, and made public the following letter to Representative
Heflin, who had addressed him on the subject:

" It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest person could doubt or
question my position with regard to the war and its objects. I have again and
again stated the very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial
German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the commerce, and the
citizens of the United States. The list is long and overwhelming. No nation
that respected itself or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs
any longer.

"Our objects in going into the war have been stated with equal clearness.
The whole of the conception, which I take to be the conception of our fellow-
countrymen, with regard to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settle-
ment I set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the Senate of
the United States on the twenty-second of January last. Again, in my message
to Congress on the second of April last those objects were stated in unmistakable
terms. I can conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the
purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which
the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an
inefficient and hesitating part. We have entered the war for our own reasons
and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons
nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but
there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation to overcome
the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which
the German people have never consented."

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen :

It gives me a very deep gratification as the titular

head of the American Bed Gross to accept in the name

of that association this significant and beautiful gift,

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296 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

the gift of the govermnent and of private individuals
who have conceived their duty in a noble spirit and
upon a great scale. It seems to me that the architecture
of the building to which the Secretary alluded sug-
gests something very significant. There are few build-
ings in Washington more simple in their lines and in
their ornamentation than the beautiful building we are
dedicating this evening. It breathes a spirit of mod-
esty and seems to adorn duty with its proper garment
of beauty. It is significant that it should be dedicated
to women who served to alleviate suffering and com-
fort those who were in need during our Civil War,
because their thoughtful, disinterested, self-sacrificing
devotion is the spirit which should always illustrate
the services of the Eed Cross.

The Eed Cross needs at this time more than ever it
needed before the comprehending support of the Ameri-
can people and all the facilities which could be placed
at its disposal to perform its duties adequately and
eflBciently.

I believe that the American people perhaps hardly
yet realize the sacrifices and sufferings that are before
them. We thought the scale of our Civil War was un-
precedented, but in comparison with the struggle into
which we have now entered the Civil War seems almost
insignificant in its proportions and in its expenditure of
treasure and of blood. And, therefore, it is a matter
of the greatest importance that we should at the outset
see to it that the American Eed Cross is equipped and
prepared for the things that lie before it.

It will be our instrument to do the works of allevi-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 297

ation and mercy which will attend this struggle.
Of course, the scale upon which it shall act will be
greater than the scale of any other duty that it has
ever attempted to perform.

It is in recognition of that fact that the American
Red Gross has just added to its organization a small
body of men whom it has chosen to call its war council
— ^not because they are to counsel war, but because they
are to serve in this special war those purposes of coun-
sel which have become so imperatively necessary.

Their first duty will be to raise a great fund out of
which to draw the resources for the performance of
their duty, and I do not believe that it will be neces-
sary to appeal to the American people to respond to
their call for funds, because the heart of this country
is in this war, and if the heart of the country is in the
war, its heart will express itself in the gifts that will
be poured out for those humane purposes.

I say the heart of the country is in this war because
it would not have gone into it if its heart had not been
prepared for it. It would not have gone into it if it
Ihad not first believed that here was an opportunity to
express the character of the United States.

We have gone in with no special grievance of our
own, because we have always said that we were the
zf riends and servants of mankind. We look for no profit.
^We look for no advantage. We will accept no advan-
^tage out of this war.

We go because we believe that the very principles
>ipon which the American Republic was founded are
now at stake and must be vindicated.

298 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

In such a contest, therefore, we shall not fail to
respond to the call for service that comes through the
instnunentaUty of this particular organization.

And I think it not inappropriate to say this : There
will be many expressions of the spirit of sympathy and
mercy and philanthropy, and I think that it is very
necessary that we should not disperse our activities in
those lines too much; that we should keep constantly
in view the desire to have the utmost concentration and
eflBciency of effort, and I hope that most, if not all, of
the philanthropic activities of this war may be
exercised, if not through the Red Cross then through
some already constituted and experienced organiza-
tion.

This is no war for amateurs. This is no war for
mere spontaneous impulse. It means grim business on
every side of it, and it is the mere counsel of prudence
that in our philanthropy as well as in our fighting we
should act through the instrmnentalities already pre-
pared to our hand and already experienced in the tasks
which are going to be assigned to them. This should
be merely the expression of the practical genius of
America itself, and I believe that the practical genius
of America will dictate that the efforts in this war in
this particular field should be concentrated in experi-
enced hands as our efforts in other fields will be.

There is another thing that is significant and delight-
ful to my thought about the fact that this building
should be dedicated to the memory of the women both
of the North and South. It is a sort of landmark of
the unity to which the people have been brought so far

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 299

as any old question which tore our hearts in days gone
by is concerned; and I pray God that the outcome of
this struggle may be that every other element of dif-
ference amongst us will be obliterated and that some
day historians will remember these momentous years
as the years which made a single people out of the
great body of those who call themselves Americans.

The evidences are already many that this is hap-
pening. The divisions which were predicted have not
occurred and will not occur.

The spirit of this people is already united, and when
effort and suffering and sacrifice have completed the
union, men will no longer speak of any lines either of
race or association cutting athwart the great body of
this nation.

So that I feel that we are now beginning the pro-
cesses which will some day require another beautiful
memorial erected to those whose hearts uniting united

ADDRESS ON MEMORIAL DAY AT ARLING-

TON, MAY 80, 1917 '

The program has conferred an unmerited dignity
upon the remarks I am going to make by calling them
an address, because I am not here to deliver an address.
I am here merely to show in my official capacity the
sympathy of this great government with the object of
this occasion, and also to speak just a word of the senti-
ment that is within my own heart.

Any Memorial day of this sort is, of course, a day
touched with sorrowful memory, and yet I for one do
not see how we can have any thought of pity for the
men whose memory we honor to-day. I do not pity
them. I envy them, rather, because theirs is a great
work for liberty accomplished and we are in the midst
of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their
strength has already been tested.

There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of
reassurance also in a day like this, because we know
how the men of America have responded to the call of
the cause of liberty, and it fills our mind with a perfect
assurance that that response will come again in equal
measure, with equal majesty, and with a result which
will hold the attention of all mankind.

When you refiect upon it these men who died to
preserve the Union died to preserve the instrument

^ Only that part of the address is given which concerns international affaira.

800

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 801

which we are now using to serve the world — ^a free
nation espousing the cause of human liberty. In one
sense the great struggle into which we have now en-
tered is an American struggle, because it is in the
sense of American honor and American rights, but
it is something even greater than that, it is a world
struggle.

It is a struggle of men who love liberty everywhere,
and in this cause America will show herself greater than
ever, because she will rise to a greater thing.

We have said in the beginning that we planned this
great government that men who wish freedom might
have a place of refuge and a place where their hope
could be realized and now, having established such a
government, having preserved such a government, hav-
ing vindicated the power of such a government, we are
saying to all mankind, ^ Ve did not set this government
up in order that we might have a selfish and separate
liberty, for we are now ready to come to your assist-
ance and fight out upon the fields of the world the cause
of human liberty. '' In this thing America attains her
full dignity and the full fruition of her great pur-
pose.

No man can be glad that such things have happened
as we have witnessed these last fateful years, but
perhaps it may be permitted to us to be glad that we
have an opportunity to show the principles that we
profess to be living, principles that live in our hearts,
and to have a chance by the pouring out of our blood
and treasure to vindicate the things which we have pro-
fessed.

802 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

For, my friends, the real fruition of life is to do
the things we have said we wish to do. There are
times when work seems empty and only action seems
great. Such a time has come, and in the providence of
God America will once more have an opportunity to
show the world she was bom to serve mankind. . . .

ADDRESS AT THE CONFEDERATE REUNION,

WASHINGTON, JUNE 6, 1917

I esteem it a very great pleasure and a real privi-
lege to extend to the men who are attending this reunion
the very cordial greetings of the United States,

I suppose that as you mix with one another you
chiefly find these to be days of memory, when your
thoughts go back and recall those days of struggle in
which your hearts were strained, in which the whole
nation seemed in grapple, and I dare say that you are
thrilled as you remember the heroic things that were
then done.

You are glad to remember that heroic things were
done on both sides and that men in those days fought
in something like the old spirit of chivalric gallantry.

There are many memories of the Civil War that
thrill along the blood and make one proud to have been
sprung of a race that could produce such bravery and
constancy ; and yet the world does not live on memories.

The world is constantly making its toilsome way for-
ward into new and different days and I believe that one
of the things that contribute satisfaction to a reunion
like this and a welcome like this is that this is also a day
of oblivion.

There are some things that we have thankfully buried,
and among them are the great passions of division which
once threatened to rend this nation in twain.

308

804 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

The passion of admiration we still entertain for the
heroic figures of those old days, but the passion of
separation, the passion of difference of principle is
gone — ^gone out of our minds, gone out of our hearts,
and one of the things that will thrill this country as
it reads of this reunion is that it wiU read also of a
rededication on the part of all of us to the great nation
which we serve in commoiL

These are days of oblivion as well as of memory,
for we are forgetting the things that once held us
asunder. Not only that, but they are days of rejoicing
because we now at last see why this great nation was
kept united, for we are beginning to see the great world
purpose which it was meant to serve.

Many men I know, particularly of your own genera-
tion, have wondered at some of the dealings of Provi-
dence, but the wise heart never questions the dealings
of Providence, because the great long plan as it unfolds
has a majesty about it and a definiteness of purpose,
an elevation of ideal which we were incapable of con-
ceiving as we tried to work things out with our own
short sight and weak strength.

And now that we see ourselves part of a nation
united, powerful, great in spirit and in purpose, we know
the great ends which God in His mysterious Providence
wrought through our instrmnentality, because at the
heart of the men of the North and of the South there
was the same love of self-government and of liberty
and now we are to be an instrument in the hands
of God to see that liberty is made secure for man-
kind.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 805

At the day of our greatest division there was one
common passion among us, and that was the passion
for human freedom. We did not know that God was
working out in His own way the method by which we
should best serve human freedom — ^by making this Union
a great united, indivisible, indestructible instnunent in
His hands for the accomplishment of these great
things.

As I came along the streets a few minutes ago my
heart was full of the thought that this is registration
day. Will you not support me in feeling that there is
some significance in this coincidence, that this day, when
I come to welcome you to the National Capital, is the
day when men young as you were in those old days,
when you gathered together to fight, are now registering
their names as evidence of this great idea, that in a
democracy the duty to serve and the privilege to serve
falls upon all alike?

There is something very fine, my fellow citi-
zens, in the spirit of the volunteer, but deeper
than the volunteer spirit is the spirit of obliga-
tion.

There i? not a man of us who must not hold him-
self ready to be summoned to the duty of supporting
the great government under which we live. No really
thoughtful and patriotic man is jealous of that obliga-
tion. No man who really understands the privilege and
dignity of being an American citizen quarrels for a
moment; with the idea that the Congress of the United
States has the right to call upon whom it will to serve
the nation.

806 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

These solemn lines of young men going to-day all
over the union to the places of registration ought to
be a signal to the world, to those who dare flout the
dignity and honor and rights of the United States, that
all her manhood will flock to that standard under which
we all delight to serve, and that he who challenges the
rights and principles of the United States challenges the
united strength and devotion of a nation.

There are not many things that one desires about
war, my fellow citizens, but you have come through war ;
you know how you have been chastened by it, and there
comes a time when it is good for a nation to know that
it must sacrifice, if need be, everything that it has to
vindicate the principles which it professes.

We have prospered with a sort of heedless and irre-
sponsible prosperity. Now we are going to lay all our
wealth, if necessary, and spend all our blood, if need be,
to show that we were not accmnulating that wealth sel-
fishly, but were accumulating it for the service of man-
kind.

Men all over the world have thought of the United
States as a trading and money-getting people, where
as we who have lived at home know the ideals with
which the hearts of this people have thrilled; we know
the sober convictions which have lain at the basis of
our life all the time, and we know the power and devo-
tion which can be spent in heroic ways for the service
of those ideals that we have treasured.

We have been allowed to become strong in the provi-
dence of God that our strength might be used to prove
not our selfishness, but our greatness, and if there is

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 307

any ground for thankfulness in a day like this I am
thankful for the privilege of self-sacrifice which is the
only privilege that lends dignity to the hiunan spirit.
And so it seems to me that we may regard this as
a very happy day, because a day of reunion, a day of
noble memories, a day of dedication, a day of the renewal
of the spirit which has made America great among the
peoples of the world.

FLAG DAY ADDRESS, DELIVERED AT WASH-

INGTON, JUNE 14, 1917

My Fellow Citizens:

We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag
which we honor and under which we serve is the emblem
of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as
a nation. It has no other character than that which
we give it from generation to generatioiL The choices
are ours. It floats in majestic silence above the hosts
that execute those choices, whether in peace or in war.
And yet, though silent, it speaks to us, — speaks to us
of the past, of the men and women who went before
us and of the records they wrote upon it. We celebrate
the day of its birth ; and from its birth until now it has
witnessed a great history, has floated on high the symbol
of great events, of a great plan of life worked out by
a great people. We are about to carry it into battle,
to lift it where it will draw the fire of our enemies.
We are about to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands,
it may be millions, of our men, the young, the strong,
the capable men of the nation, to go forth and die be-
neath it on fields of blood far away, — ^for what? For
some unaccustomed thing? For something for which
it has never sought the fire before? American armies
were never before sent across the seas. Why are they
sent now? For some new purpose, for which this great
flag has never been carried before, or for some old,
familiar, heroic purpose for which it has seen men,

808

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 309

its own men, die on every battlefield upon which Ameri-
cans have borne arms since the Revolution?

These are questions which must be answered. We are
Americans. We in our turn serve America, and can
serve her with no private purpose. We must use her
flag as she has always used it. We are accountable at
the bar of history and must plead in utter frankness
what purpose it is we seek to serve.

It is plain enough how we were forced into the war.
The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Im-*
peri^ German Government left us no self-respecting
choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as
a free people and of our honor as a sovereign govern-
ment. The military masters of Germany denied us the
right to be neutral. They filled our unsuspecting com-
munities with vicious spies and conspirators and sought
to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf.
When they found that they could not do that, their
agents diligently spread sedition amongst us and sought
to draw our own citizens from their allegiance, — and
some of those agents were men connected with the offi-
cial Embassy of the German Government itself here
in our own capital. They sought by violence to destroy
our industries and arrest our commerce. They tried to
incite Mexico to take up arms against us and to draw
Japan into a hostile alliance with her, — and that, not
by indirection, but by direct suggestion from the For-
eign Office in Berlin. They impudently denied us the
use of the high seas and repeatedly executed their threat
that they would send to their death any of our people
who ventured to approach the coasts of Europe. And

810 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

many of our own people were corrupted. Men began
to look upon their own neighbors with suspicion and to
wonder in their hot resentment and surprise whether
there was any community in which hostile intrigue did
not lurk. What great nation in such circumstances
would not have taken up arms? Much as we had
desired peace, it was denied us, and not of our own
choice. This flag under which we serve would have been
dishonored had we withheld our hand.

But that is only part of the story. We know now
as clearly as we knew before we were ourselves engaged
that we are not the enemies of the German people and
that they are not our enemies. They did not originate
or desire this hideous war or wish that we should be
drawn into itj and we are vaguely conscious that we
are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it,
as well as our own. They are themselves in the grip
of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched
its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. The whole
world is at war because the whole world is in the grip
of that power and is trying out the great battle which
shall determine whether it is to be brought under its
mastery or fling itself free.

The war was begun by the military masters of Ger-
many, who proved to be also the masters of Austria-
Himgary. These men have never regarded nations as
peoples, men, women, and children of like blood and
frame as themselves, for whom governments existed and
in whom governments had their life. They have re-
garded them merely as serviceable organizations which
they could by force or intrigue bend or corrupt to their

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 811

own purpose. They have regarded the smaller states,
in particular, and the peoples who could be overwhelmed
by force, as their natural tools and instruments of domi-
nation. Their purpose has long been avowed. The
statesmen of other nations, to whom that purpose was
incredible, paid little attention; regarded what German
professors expounded in their classrooms and German
writers set forth to the world as the goal of German
policy as rather the dream of minds detached from
practical affairs, as preposterous private conceptions
of German destiny, than as the actual plans of respon-
sible rulers ; but the rulers of Germany themselves knew
all the while what concrete plans, what well advanced
intrigues lay back of what the professors and the writers
were saying, and were glad to go forward unmolested,
filling the thrones of Balkan states with German princes,
putting German officers at the service of Turkey to drill
her armies and make interest with her government,
developing plans of sedition and rebellion in India and
Egypt, setting their fires in Persia. The demands made
by Austria upon Servia were a mere single step in a
plan which compassed Europe and Asia, from Berlin
to Bagdad. They hoped those demands might not arouse
Europe, but they meant to press them whether they did
or not, for they thought themselves ready for the final
issue of arms.

Their plan was to throw a broad belt of German
military power and political control across the very
center of Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into
the heart of Asia; and Austria-Himgary was to be as
much their tool and pawn as Servia or Bulgaria or

812 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Turkey or the ponderous states of the East. Austria-
Hungary, indeed, was to become part of the central
German Empire, absorbed and dominated by the same
forces and influences that had originally cemented the
German states themselves. The dream had its heart
at Berlin. It could have had a heart nowhere else!
It rejected the idea of solidarity of race entirely. The
choice of peoples played no part in it at all. It con-
templated binding together racial and political units
which could be kept together only by force, — Czechs,
Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Boumanians, Turks, Armenians,
— the proud states of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout
little commonwealths of the Balkans, the indomitable
Turks, the subtile peoples of the East. These peoples
did not wish to be united. They ardently desired to
direct their own affairs, would be satisfied only by
imdisputed independence. They could be kept quiet
only by the presence or the constant threat of armed
men. They would live under a common power only by
sheer compulsion and await the day of revolution. But
the German military statesmen had reckoned with all
that and were ready to deal with it in their own way.
And they have actually carried the greater part of
that amazing plan into execution I Look how things
stand. Austria is at their mercy. It has acted, not
upon its own initiative or upon the choice of its own
people, but at Berlin's dictation ever since the war
began. Its people now desire peace, but cannot have
it until leave is granted from Berlin. The so-called
Central Powers are in fact but a single Power. Servia
is at its mercy, should its hands be but for a moment

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 313

freed. Bulgaria has consented to its will, and Rou-
mania is overrun. The Turkish armies, which Germans
trained, are serving Germany, certainly not themselves,
and the guns of German warships lying in the harbor
at Constantinople remind Turkish statesmen every day
that they have no choice but to take their orders from
Berlin. From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf the net is
spread.

Is it not easy to imderstand the eagerness for peace
that has been manifested from Berlin ever since the
snare was set and sprung? Peace, peace, peace has
been the talk of her Foreign Office for now a year and
more; not peace upon her own initiative, but upon the
initiative of the nations over which she now deems
herself to hold the advantage. A little of the talk
has been public, but most of it has been private.
Through all sorts of channels it has come to me, and
in all sorts of guises, but never with the terms dis-
closed which the German Government would be willing
to accept. That government has other valuable pawns
in its hands besides those I have mentioned. It still
holds a valuable part of France, though with slowly
relaxing grasp, and practically the whole of Belgium.
Its armies press close upon Russia and overrun Poland
at their will. It cannot go further ; it dare not go back.
It wishes to close its bargain before it is too late and
it has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will
demand.

The military masters under whom Germany is bleed-
ing see very clearly to what point Fate has brought
them. If they fall back or are forced back an inch,

814 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

their power both abroad and at home will fall to pieces
like a house of cards. It is their power at home they are
thinking about now more than their power abroad.
It is that power which is trembling under their very
feet; and deep fear has entered their hearts. They
have but one chance to perpetuate their military power
or even their controlling political influence. If they
can secure peace now with the immense advantages still
in their hands which they have up to this point appar-
ently gained, they will have justified themselves before
the German people : they will have gained by force what
they promised to gain by it: an immense expansion of
German power, an immense enlargement of (German
industrial and commercial opportunities. Their prestige
will be secure, and with their prestige their political
power. If they fail, their people will thrust them aside ;
a government accountable to the people themselves will
be set up in Germany as it has been in England, in the
United States, in France, and in all the great coun-
tries of the modem time except Germany. If they suc-
ceed they are safe and Germany and the world are un-
done ; if they fail Germany is saved and the world will
be at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within
the menace. We and all the rest of the world must
remain armed, as they will remain, and must make ready
for the next step in their aggression; if they fail, the
world may unite for peace and Germany may be of
the union.

Do you not now understand the new intrigue, the
intrigue for peace, and why the masters of Germany
do not hesitate to use any agency that promises to effect

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 315

their purpose, the deceit of the nations? Their present
particular aim is to deceive all those who throughout
the world stand for the rights of peoples and the self-
government of nations; for they see what immense
strength the forces of justice and of liberalism are
gathering out of this war. They are employing liberals
in their enterprise. They are using men, in Germany
and without, as their spokesmen whom they have
hitherto despised and oppressed, using them for their
own destruction, — socialists, the leaders of labor, the
thinkers they have hitherto sought to silence. Let them
once succeed and these men, now their tools, will be
ground to powder beneath the weight of the great mili-
tary empire they will have set up ; the revolutionists in
Bussia wiU be cut off from all succour or co-operation
in western Europe and a counter revolution fostered
and supported; Germany herself will lose her chance
of freedom; and all Europe will arm for the next, the
final struggle.

The sinister intrigue is being no less actively con-
ducted in this country than in Russia and in every
country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of
the Imperial German Government can get access. That
government has many spokesmen here, in places high
and low. They have learned discretion. They keep
within the law. It is opinion they utter now, not sedi-
tion. They proclaim the liberal purposes of their mas-
ters ; declare this a foreign war which can touch America
with no danger to either her lands or her institutions;
set England at the center of the stage and talk of her
ambition to assert economic dominion throughout the

816 PRESroENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

world; appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation in
the politics of the nations; and seek to undermine the
government with false professions of loyalty to its
principles.

But they will make no headway. The false betray
themselves always in every accent. It is only friends
and partisans of the German Government whom we
have already identified who utter these thinly disguised
disloyalties. The facts are patent to all the world, and
nowhere are they more plainly seen than in the United
States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts and
not with sophistries ; and the great fact that stands out
above all the rest is that this is a Peoples' War, a war
for freedom and justice and self-government amongst
all the nations of the world, a war to make the world
safe for the peoples who live upon it and have made
it their own, the German people themselves included;
and that with us rests the choice to break through all
these hypocrisies and patent cheats and masks of brute
force and help set the world free, or else stand aside
and let it be dominated a long age through by sheer
weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of self -consti-
tuted masters, by the nation which can maintain the
biggest armies and the most irresistible armaments, — ^a
power to which the world has afforded no parallel and
in the face of which political freedom must wither and
perish.

For us there is but one choice. We have made it.
.Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand
in our way in this day of high resolution when every
principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 817

secure for the s&lvation of the nations. We are ready
to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear
a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our
lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were
bom, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our
people.

COMMUNICATION TO THE PROVISIONAL
GOVERNMENT OF RUSSIA, JUNE 9, 1917

On March 15, 1917, the world was startled by the abdication of the Czar
of all the Rnssias in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael. The Grand
Duke, however, was unwilling to bear the responsibility which had been too great
for his brother and to stem the current of revolution which his brother had
failed to stem. He, therefore, declined the proffered honor. A provisional gor-
emment was formed, the first recognition of which was made by the United
States on March 22, 1917. On May 12, 1917, a special diplomatic mission of
the United States of America, headed by the Honorable Elihu Boot, was sent to
Russia. President Wilson himself prepared and transmitted to the Provisional
Government of Russia the following communication.

In view of the approaching visit of the American
delegation to Russia to express the deep friendship of
the American people for the people of Bussia and to
discuss the best and most practical means of co-opera-
tion between the two peoples in carrying the present
struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful
consummation, it seems opportune and appropriate that
I should state again, in the light of this new partner-
ship, the objects the United States has had in mind in
entering the war. Those objects have been very much
beclouded during the past few weeks by mistaken and
misleading statements, and the issues at stake are too
momentous, too tremendous, too significant, for the
whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or
misunderstandings, however slight, to remain uncor-
rected for a moment.

The war has begun to go against Gtermany, and in
their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate
defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using

818

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 819

every possible instnunentality, are making use even of
the influence of groups and parties among their own
subjects to whom they have never been just or fair,
or even tolerant, to promote a propaganda on both sides
of the sea which will preserve for them their influence
at home and their power abroad, to the undoing of the
very men they are using.

The position of America in this war is so clearly
avowed that no man can be excused for mistaking it.
She seeks no material profit or aggrandizement of any
kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object
of her own, but for the liberation of peoples every-
where from the aggressions of autocratic force-

The ruling classes in Germany have begun of late to
profess a like liberality and justice of purpose, but only
to preserve the power they have set up in Germany and
the selfish advantages which they have wrongly gained
for themselves and their private projects of power all
the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. Govern-
ment after government has by their influence, without
open conquest of its territory, been linked together in
a net of intrigue directed against nothing less than the
peace and liberty of the world. The meshes of that
intrigue must be broken, but cannot be broken unless
wrongs already done are undone; and adequate meas-
ures must be taken to prevent it from ever again being
rewoven or repaired.

Of course, the Imperial German Government and
those whom it is using for their own undoing are seek-
ing to obtain pledges that the war will end in the resto-
ration of the stattis quo ante. It was the status quo ante

820 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

out of which this iMquitous war issued forth, the power
of the Imperial Gt^nxiBXi Govennnent within the Empire
and its widespread domination and influence outside of
that Empire- That status must be altered in such
fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever
happening again.

We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government,
and the undictated development of all peoples, and every
feature of the settlement that concludes this war must
be conceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs
must first be righted and then adequate safeguards
must be created to prevent their being committed again.
We ought not to consider remedies merely because they
have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical ques-
tions can be settled only by practical means. Phrases
will not accomplish the result. Effective readjustments
will, and whatever readjustments are necessary must
be made.

But they must follow a principle and that prin-
ciple is plain. No people must be forced under sover-
eignty under which it does not wish to live. No terri-
tory must change hands except for the purpose of secur-
ing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and
liberty. No indemnities must be insisted on except those
that constitute payment for manifest wrongs done. No
readjustments of power must be made except such as
will tend to secure the future peace of the world and
the future welfare and happiness of its peoples.

And then the free peoples of the world must draw
together in some common covenant, some genuine and
practical co-operation that will in effect combine their

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 821

force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of
nations with one another. The brotherhood of mankind
must no longer be a fair but empty phrase: it must be
given a structure of force and reality. The nations must
realize their common life and effect a workable partner-
ship to secure that life against the aggressions of auto-
cratic and self -pleasing power.

For these things we can afford to pour out blood
and treasure. For these are the things we have always
professed to desire, and unless we pour out blood
and treasure now and succeed, we may never be able
to unite or show conquering force again in the great
cause of human liberty. The day has come to conquer
or submit. If the forces of autocracy can divide us,
they will overcome us; if we stand together, victory is
certain and the liberty which victory will secure. We
can afford then to be generous, but we cannot afford
then or now to be weak or omit any single guarantee
of justice and security.

WooDBOw Wilson.

REPLY TO THE PEACE APPEAL OF THE

POPE, AUGUST 27, 1917

To His Holiness Benedictus XV, Pope:

In acknowledgment of the communication of Your
Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917,
the President of the United States requests me to trans-
mit the following reply:

"Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened
by this terrible war must be touched by this moving
appeal of His Holiness the Pope, must feel the dignity
and force of the humane and generous motives which
prompted it, and must fervently wish that we might
take the path of peace he so persuasively points out.
But it would be f oUy to take it if it does not in fact
lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be
based upon the stem facts and upon nothing else. It is
not a mere cessation of arms he desires; it is a stable
and enduring peace. This agony must not be gone
through with again, and it must be a matter of very
sober judgment what will insure us against it.

**E[is Holiness in substance proposes that we return
to the status quo ante helium, and that then there be
a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of
nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of
arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the
seas be established; and that the territorial claims of
France and Italy, the perplexing problems of the Balkan
States, and the restitution of Poland be left to such con-
ciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new
temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to tlie

822

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 823

aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and
affiliations will be involved.

**It is manifest that no part of this program can be
successfully carried out unless the restitution of the
status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis
for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free
peoples of the world from the menace and the actual
power of a vast military establishment controlled by
an irresponsible government which, having secretly
planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the
plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations
of treaty or the long-established practices and long-
cherished principles of international action and honor;
which chose its own time for the war ; delivered its blow
fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of
law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the
tide of blood — ^not the blood of soldiers only, but the
blood of innocent women and children also and of the
helpless poor; and now stands balked but not defeated,
the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is
not the German people. It is the ruthless master of
the German people. It is no business of ours how
that great people came under its control or submitted
with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose;
but it is our business to see to it that the history of the
rest of the world is no longer left to its handling.

"To deal with such a power by way of peace upon
the plan proposed by His Holiness the Pope would, so
far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength
and a renewal of its policy ; would make it necessary to
create a permanent hostile combination of nations
against the German people, who are its instruments;
and would result in abandoning the new-bom Russia
to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and
the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted

824 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

by all the malign influences to which the German Gk)v-
ernment has of late accustomed the world. Can peace
be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any
word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement
and accommodation?

** Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if
they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely
upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit
some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon
vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or
deliberate injury. The American people have suffered
intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial Gterman
Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the Ger-
man people, who have themselves suffered all things in
this war, which they did not choose. They believe that
peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the
rights of Gt)vemments — ^the rights of peoples great or
small, weak or powerful — ^their equal right to freedom
and security and self-government and to a participa-
tion upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of
the world, the German people of course included if they
will accept equality and not seek domination.

"The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this:
Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved
or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing
government on the one hand and of a group of free
peoples, on the other? This is a test which goes to the
root of the matter; and it is the test which must be
applied.

**The purposes of the United States in this war are
known to the whole world, to every people to whom
the truth has been permitted to come. They do not
need to be stated again. We seek no material advan-
tage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable
wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal power

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 826

of the Imperial German Govermnent ought to be re-
paired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any
people — rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of
those that are weak and of those that are strong. Pimi-
tive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the estab-
lishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we
deem inexpedient and in the end worse than futile, no
proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for
an enduring peace- That must be based upon justice
and fairness and the common rights of mankind.

**We cannot take the word of the present rulers of
Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure,
unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence
of the will and purpose of the German people them-
selves as the other peoples of the world would be justi-
fied in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of
settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to
set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial ad-
justments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with
the German Government, no man, no nation could now
depend on. We must await some new evidence of the
purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers.
Ck)d grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore
the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of
nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace."

BOBEBT IiANSmO^

Secretary of State of the United States

of America.

, ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
CONVENTION, BUFFALO, NOVEM-
BER 12, 1917

Mb. PBESiDENTy Delegates of the Amebigan Federa-
tion OF Labor, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
I esteem it a great privilege and a real honor to
be thus admitted to your public counsels. When your
executive committee paid me the compliment of inviting
me here I gladly accepted the invitation because it
seems to me that this, above all other times in our his-
tory, is the time for common counsel, for the drawing
together not only of the energies but of the minds of the
Nation. I thought that it was a welcome opportunity
for disclosing to you some of the thoughts that have
been gathering in my mind during the last momentous
months.

I am introduced to you as the President of the
United States, and yet I would be pleased if you would
put the thought of the ofl&ce into the background and
regard me as one of your fellow citizens who has come
here to speak, not the words of authority, but the words
of counsel; the words which men should speak to one
another who wish to be frank in a moment more critical
perhaps than the history of the world has ever yet
known; a moment when it is every man's duty to forget
himself, to forget his own interests, to fill himself with
the nobility of a great national and world conception,

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 827

and act upon a new platform elevated above the ordinary
affairs of life and lifted to where men have views of
the long destiny of mankind, I think that in order to
realize just what this moment of counsel is it is very
desirable that we should remind ourselves just how this
war came about and just what it is for. You can explain
most wars very simply, but the explanation of this is
not so simple- Its roots run deep into all the obscure
soils of history, and in my view this is the last decisive
issue between the old principle of power and the new
principle of freedom.

The war was started by Germany. Her authorities
deny that they started it, but I am willing to let the
statement I have just made await the verdict of history.
And the thing that needs to be explained is why Gter-
many started the war. Remember what the position of
Germany in the world was — ^as enviable a position as
any nation has ever occupied. The whole world stood
in admiration of her wonderful intellectual and material
achievements. All the intellectual men of the world
went to school to her. As a university man I have been
surrounded by men trained in Gtermany, men who had
resorted to Germany because nowhere else could they
get such thorough and searching training, particularly
in the principles of science and the principles that under-
lie modem material achievement. Her men of science
had made her industries perhaps the most competent
industries of the world, and the label "Made in Ger-
many'' was a guarantee of good workmanship and of
sound material. She had access to all the markets of
the world, and every other nation who traded in those

328 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

markets feared Germany because of her effective and
almost irresistible competition. She had a '^ place in
the sun/'

Why was she not satisfied? What more did she
want? There was nothing in the world of peace that
she did not already have and have in abundance. We
boast of the extraordinary pace of American advance-
ment. We show with pride the statistics of the increase
of our industries and of the population of our cities.
Well, those statistics did not match the recent statistics
of Germany. Her old cities took on youth and grew
faster than any American cities ever grew. Her old
industries opened their eyes and saw a new world and
went out for its conquest. And yet the authorities of
Germany were not satisfied. You have one part of the
answer to the question why she was not satisfied in
her methods of competition. There is no important
industry in Germany upon which the Government has
not laid its hands, to direct it and, when necessity arose,
control it; and you have only to ask any man whom
you meet who is familiar with the conditions that pre-
vailed before the war in the matter of national compe-
tition to find out the methods of competition which the
German manufacturers and exporters used under the
patronage and support of the Government of (Jermany.
You will find that they were the same sort of competi-
tion that we have tried to prevent by law within our
own borders. If they could not sell their goods cheaper
than we could sell ours at a profit to themselves they
could get a subsidy from the Government which made
it possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the condi-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 329

tions of competition were thus controlled in large meas-
ure by the German Government itself.

But that did not satisfy the German Government.
All the while there was lying behind its thought and in
its dreams of the future a political control which would
enable it in the long run to dominate the labor and the
industry of the world. They were not content with suc-
cess by superior achievement; they wanted success by
authority. I suppose very few of you have thought
much about the Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway. The Berlin-
Bagdad Railway was constructed in order to run the
threat of force down the flank of the industrial under-
takings of half a dozen other countries; so that when
German competition came in it would not be resisted
too far, because there was always the possibility of
getting German armies into the heart of that country
quicker than any other armies could be got there.

Look at the map of Europe now I Germany in
thrusting upon us again and again the discussion of
peace talks — about what? Talks about Belgium; talks
about northern France; talks about Alsace-Lorraine.
Well, those are deeply interesting subjects to us and
to them, but they are not the heart of the matter.
Take the map and look at it. Germany has abso-
lute control of Austria-Hungary, practical control of
the Balkan States, control of Turkey, control of Asia
Minor. I saw a map in which the whole thing was
printed in appropriate black the other day, and
the black stretched all the way from Hamburg to
Bagdad — ^the bulk of German power inserted into the
heart of the world. If she can keep that, she has kept

330 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

all that her dreams contemplated when the war began.
If she can keep that, her power can disturb the world
as long as she keeps it, always provided, for I feel
bound to put this proviso in — always provided the pres-
ent influences that control the German Government con-
tinue to control it, I believe that the spirit of freedom
can get into the hearts of Germans and find as fine a
welcome there as it can find in any other hearts, but
the spirit of freedom does not suit the plans of the
Pan-Germans, Power cannot be used with concentrated
force against free peoples if it is used by free
people-

You know how many intimations come to us from
one of the central powers that it is more anxious for
peace than the chief central power, and you know that
it means that the people in that central power know
that if the war ends as it stands they will in effect
themselves be vassals of Germany, notwithstanding that
their populations are compounded of all the peoples
of that part of the world, and notwithstanding the fact
that they do not wish in their pride and proper spirit
of nationality to be so absorbed and dominated. Ger-
many is determined that the political power of the
world shall belong to her. There have been such ambi-
tions before. They have been in part realized, but
never before have those ambitions been based upon so
exact and precise and scientific a plan of domination.

May I not say that it is amazing to me that any
group of persons should be so ill-informed as to sup-
pose, as some groups in Russia apparently suppose,
that any reforms planned in the interest of the people

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS SSI

can live in the presence of a Germany powerful enough
to undermine or overthrow them by intrigue or force?
Any body of free men that compounds with the present
German Government is compounding for its own
destruction. But that is not the whole of the story.
Any man in America or anywhere else that supposes
that the free industry and enterprise of the world can
continue if the Pan-German plan is achieved and Ger-
man power fastened upon the world is as fatuous as
the dreamers in Russia. What I am opposed to is not
the feeling of the pacifists, but their stupidity. My
heart is with them, but my mind has a contempt for
them. I want peace, but I know how to get it, and
they do not.

You will notice that I sent a friend of mine. Col.
House, to Europe, who is as great a lover of peace as
any man in the world; but I didn't send him on a peace
mission yet. I sent him to take part in a conference
as to how the war was to be won, and he knows, as I
know, that that is the way to get peace, if you want
it for more than a few minutes.

All of this is a preface to the conference that I have
referred to with regard to what we are going to do.
If we are true friends of freedom, our own or any-
body else's, we will see that the power of this country
and the productivity of this country is raised to its
absolute maximum, and that absolutely nobody is allowed
to stand in the way of it. When I say that nobody is
allowed to stand in the way I do not mean that they
shall be prevented by the power of the Government but
by the power of the American spirit. Our duty, if we

332 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

are to do this great thing and show America to be
what we believe her to be — ^the greatest hope and energy
of the world — is to stand together night and day until
the job is finished.

While we are fighting for freedom we must see,
among other things, that labor is free; and that means
a niunber of interesting things. It means not only that
we must do what we have declared our purpose to do,
see that the conditions of labor are not rendered more
onerous by the war, but also that we shall see to it that
the instrumentalities by which the conditions of labor
are improved are not blocked or checked. That we
must do. That has been the matter about which I have
taken pleasure in conferring from time to time with
your president, Mr. Gompers ; and if I may be permitted
to do so, I want to express my admiration of his patri-
otic courage, his large vision, and his statesmanlik
sense of what has to be done. I like to lay my min
alongside of a mind that knows how to pull in harness^
The horses that kick over the traces will have to
put in corral.

Now, to stand together means that nobody
interrupt the processes of our energy if the interrup-
tion can possibly be avoided without the absolut^^
invasion of freedom. To put it concretely, that mean^s^
this : Nobody has a right to stop the processes of laboE*^^
until all the methods of conciliation and settlement*'^
have been exhausted. And I might as well say right^'J
here that I am not talking to you alone. You some — ^
times stop the courses of labor, but there are others^^
who do the same, and I believe I am speaking from^^

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 833

my own experience not only, but from the experi-
ence of others, when I say that you are reasonable in
a larger number of cases than the capitalists. I am not
saying these things to them personally yet, because I
have not had a chance, but they have to be said, not in
any spirit of criticism, but in order to clear the atmos-
phere and come down to business. Everybody on both
sides has now got to transact business, and a settlement
is never impossible when both sides want to do the
square and right thing.

Moreover, a settlement is always hard to avoid when
the parties can be brought face to face. I can diflfer
from a man much more radically when he is not in the
room than I can when he is in the room, because then
the awkward thing is he can come back at me and answer
what I say. It is always dangerous for a man to have
the floor entirely to himself. Therefore, we must insist
in every instance that the parties come into each other's
presence and there discuss the issues between them and
not separately in places which have no communication
with each other. I always like to remind myself of a
delightful saying of an Englishman of the past gener-
ation, Charles Lamb. He stuttered a little bit, and once
when he was with a group of friends he spoke very
harshly of some man who was not present. One of his
friends said: **Why, Charles, I didn't know that you
knew so and so.'' **0-o-oh," he said, **I-I d-d-don 't;
I-I can't h-h-hate a m-m-man I-I know." There is a
great deal of hiunan nature, of very pleasant human
nature, in the saying. It is hard to hate a man you
know. I may admit, parenthetically, that there are

334 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

some politicians whose methods I do not at all believe
in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if they only
would not talk the wrong kind of politics, I would love
to be with them.

So it is all along the line, in serious matters and
things less serious. We are all of the same clay and
spirit, and we can get together if we desire to get
together. Therefore, my counsel to you is this : Let us
show ourselves Americans by showing that we do not
want to go off in separate camps or groups by our-
selves, but that we want to co-operate with all other
classes and all other groups in the common enterprise
which is to release the spirits of the world from bondage.
I would be willing to set that up as the final test of
an American. That is the meaning of democracy. I
have been very much distressed, my fellow citizens, by
some of the things that have happened recently. The
mob spirit is displaying itself here and there in this
country. I have no sympathy with what some men are
saying, but I have no sympathy with the men who take
their punishment into their own hands; and I want to
say to every man who does join such a mob that I do
not recognize him as worthy of the free institutions of
the United States. There are some organizations in this
country whose object is anarchy and the destruction of
law, but I would not meet their efforts by making
myself partner in destroying the law. I despise and
hate their purposes as much as any man, but I respect
the ancient processes of justice; and I would be too
proud not to see them done justice, however wrong
they are.

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 836

So I want to utter my earnest protest against any
manifestation of the spirit of lawlessness anywhere or
in any cause. Why, gentlemen, look what it means.
We claim to be the greatest democratic people in the
world, and democracy means first of all that we can
govern ourselves. If our men have not self-control, then
they are not capable of that great thing which we call
democratic government. A man who takes the law into
his own hands is not the right man to co-operate in any
formation or development of law and institutions, and
some of the processes by which the struggle between
capital and labor is carried on are processes that come
very near to taking the law into your own hands. I do
not mean for a moment to compare them with what I
have just been speaking of, but I want you to see that
they are mere gradations in this manifestation of the
imwillingness to co-operate, and that the fundamental
lesson of the whole situation is that we must not only
take common counsel, but that we must yield to and
obey common counsel. Not all of the instnmientalities
for this are at hand. I am hopeful that in the very
near future new instrumentalities may be organized
by which we can see to it that various things that are
now going on ought not to go on. There are various
processes of the dilution of labor and the unnecessary
substitution of labor and the bidding in distant markets
and unfairly upsetting the whole competition of labor
which ought not to go on. I mean now on the part of
employers, and we must interject some instrumentality
of co-operation by which the fair thing will be done
all around. I am hopeful that some such instrumen-

336 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

talities may be devised, but whether they are or not,
we must use those that we have and upon every occasion
where it is necessary have such an instrumentality
originated upon that occasion.

So, my fellow citizens, the reason I came away from
Washington is that I sometimes get lonely down there.
So many people come to Washington who know things
that are not so, and so few people who know anything
about what the people of the United States are think-
ing about. I have to come away and get reminded
of the rest of the country. I have to come away and
talk to men who are up against the real thing, and
say to them, **I am with you if you are with me."
And the only test of being with me is not to think
about me personally at all, but merely to think of me
as the expression for the time being of the power and
dignity and hope of the United States.

TELEGRAM TO THE NORTHWEST LOYALTY

MEETINGS, ST. PAUL, MINN.,
NOVEMBER 16, 1917

Northwest Loyalty Meetings,

' St. Paul, Minn.,
R. W. Hargadine, Secretary.

Nothing could be more significant than your gather-
ing to express the loyalty of the Great Northwest. If it
were possible I should gladly be with you. You have
leome together as the representatives of that Western
Empire in which the sons of all sections of America
and the stocks of aU the nations of Europe have made
the prairie and the forest the home of a new race and
the temple of a new faith.

The time has come when that home must be protected
and that faith afl&rmed in deeds. Sacrifice and service
must come from every class, every profession, every
party, every race, every creed, every section. This is
not a banker's war or a farmer's war or a manufac-
turer's war or a laboring man's war — ^it is a war for
every straight-out American whether our flag be his
by birth or by adoption.

We are to-day a Nation in arms and we must fight
and farm, mine and manufacture, conserve food and
fuel, save and spend to the one common purpose. It is
to the Great Northwest that the Nation looks, as once
before in critical days, for that steadiness of purpose
and firmness of determination which shall see this
struggle through to a decision that shall make the
masters of Germany rue the day they unmasked their
purpose and challenged our Republic.

887

TELEGRAM TO THE KING OF THE
BELGIANS, NOVEMBER 17, 1917

His Majesty Albert,

King of the Belgians, Havre.

I take pleasure in extending to Your Majesty greet-
ings of friendship and good will on this your fete day.

For the people of the United States, I take this
occasion to renew expressions of deep sympathy for the
sufferings which Belgium has endured under the willful,
cruel, and barbaric force of a disappointed Prussian
autocracy.

The people of the United States were never more
in earnest than in their determination to prosecute to a
successful conclusion this war against that power and
to secure for the future, obedience to the laws of nations
and respect for the rights of humanity.

888

ADDRESS RECOMMENDING THE DECLARA-

TION OF A STATE OF WAR BETWEEN

THE UNITED STATES AND THE AUS-

TRO-HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT,

DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES-

SION OF THE TWO HOUSES

OF THE CONGRESS,

DECEMBER 4, 1917

In his address to the Congress of April 2, 1917, President Wilson referred
to the grievances which this country had against the Austro-Hungarian Govem-
ment, and stated that "that Government has not actually engaged in warfare
against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the
present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities
at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because
there are no other means of defending our rights." As, however, events proved,
in the language of the Austrian poet, Friedrich Halm, that Germany and Austria-
Hungary are

" Two souls with but a single thought.
Two hearts that beat as one,"

the President reluctantly reached the conclusion that a state of war should be
declared to exist between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Govern-
ment. He therefore recommended it in his address to the Congress of December
4th, and on December 7th that body gave effect to his recommendation as follows :
"Whereas, The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government has
committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the
United States of America, therefore be it

"Resolved hy the Senate oiid Houee of Repreeentativee of the United
States of America in Congreee auemhled. That a state of war is hereby de-
clared to exist between the United States of America and the Imperial and
Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, and that the President be and he is
hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military
forces of the United States and resources of the Government to carry on war
against the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and to bring
the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are
hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.

Gentlemen of the Congress :

Eight months have elapsed since I last had the honor
of addressing you. They have been months crowded

889

840 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

with events of inmieiise and grave significance for ns. I
shall not undertake to retail or even to summarize those
events. The practical particulars of the part we have
played in them will be laid before you in the reports of
the Executive Departments. I shaU discuss only our
present outlook upon these vast affairs, our present
duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing the
objects we shall hold always in view.

I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war.
The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by
the sinister masters of Germany have long since become
too grossly obvious and odious to every true American
to need to be rehearsed. But I shaU ask you to consider
again and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and
the measures by which we mean to attain them; for the
purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and
our action must move straight towards definite ends.
Our object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall
not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is
won. But it is worth while asking and answering the
question. When shall we consider the war won?

From one point of view it is not necessary to broach
this fundamental matter. I do not doubt that the
American people know what the war is about and what
sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of
their purpose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit
and intention. I pay little heed to those who teU me
otherwise. I hear the voices of dissent, — ^who does not!
I hear the criticism and the clamor of the noisily
thoughtless and troublesome. I also see men here and
there fling themselves in impotent disloyalty against the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 841

calm, indomitable power of the nation. I hear men
debate peace who miderstand neither its nature nor the
way in which we may attain it with uplifted eyes and
unbroken spirits. But I know that none of these speaks
for the nation. They do not touch the heart of any-
thing. They may safely be left to strut their uneasy
hour and be forgotten.

But from another point of view I believe that it is
necessary to say plainly what we here at the seat of
action consider the war to be for and what part we mean
to play in the settlement of its searching issues. We are
the spokesmen of the American p'eople and they have a
right to know whether their purpose is ours. They de-
sire peace by the overcoming of evil, by the defeat once
for all of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and
render it impossible, and they wish to know how closely
our thought runs with theirs and what action we pro-
pose. They are impatient with those who desire peace
by any sort of compromise, — deeply and indignantly im-
patient, — but they will be equally impatient with us if
we do not make it plain to them what our objectives are
and what we are planning for in seeking to make con-
quest of peace by arms.

I believe that I speak for them when I say two
things: First, that this intolerable Thing of which the
masters of Germany have shown us the ugly face, this
menace of combined intrigue and force which we now see
so clearly as the German power, a Thing without con-
science or honor or capacity for covenanted peace, must
be crushed and, if it be not utterly brought to an end, at
least shut out from the friendly intercourse of the na-

842 PRESIDENT WILSON^S FOREIGN POUCY

.tions ; and, second, that when this Thing and its power
are indeed defeated and the time comes that we can dis-
cuss peace, — ^when the German people have spokesmen
whose word we can believe and when those spokesmen
are ready in the name of their people to accept the com-
mon judgment of the nations as to what shall henceforth
be the bases of law and of covenant for the life of the
world, — ^we shall be willing and glad to pay the full
price for peace, and pay it ungrudgingly. We know
what that price will be. It will be full, impartial jus-
tice, — ^justice done at every point and to every nation
that the final settlement must affect, our enemies as well
as our friends.

You catch, with me, the voices of humanity that are
in the air. They grow daily more audible, more articu-
late, more persuasive, and they come from the hearts of
men everywhere. They insist that the war shall not end
in vindictive action of any kind ; that no nation or peo-
ple shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible
rulers of a single country have themselves done deep
and abominable wrong. It is this thought that has been
expressed in the formula **No annexations, no contribu-
tions, no punitive indemnities.'' Just because this crude
formula expresses the instinctive judgment as to right
of plain men everywhere it has been made diligent use
of by the masters of German intrigue to lead the people
of Russia astray — and the people of every other country
their agents could reach, in order that a premature peace
might be brought about before autocracy has been taught
its final and convincing lesson, and the people of the
world put in control of their own destinies.

MESSAGES^ ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 843

But the fact that a wrong use has been made of a just
idea is no reason why a right use should not be made
of it. It ought to be brought under the patronage of its
real friends. Let it be said again that autocracy must
first be shown the utter futility of its claims to power or
leadership in the modern world. It is impossible to
apply any standard of justice so long as such forces are
unchecked and undefeated as the present masters of Ger-
many command. Not until that has been done can Bight
be set up as arbiter and peace-maker among the nations.
But when that has been done, — ^as, Gtod willing, it as-
suredly will be, — ^we shall at last be free to do an un-
precedented thing, and this is the time to avow our
purpose to do it. We shall be free to base peace
on generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all
selfish claims to advantage even on the part of the
victors.

Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present and
immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn
us aside from it until it is accomplished. Every power
and resource we possess, whether of men, of money, or
of materials, is being devoted and will continue to be
devoted to that purpose until it is achieved. Those who
desire to bring peace about before that purpose is
achieved I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We
will not entertain it. We shall regard the war as won
only when the German people say to us, through properly
accredited representatives, that they are ready to agree
to a settlement based upon justice and the reparation of
the wrongs their rulers have done. They have done a
wrong to Belgium which must be repaired. They have

844 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

established a power over other lands and peoples than
their own,— over the great Empire of Austria-Hungary,
over hitherto free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within
Asia, — ^which must be relinquished.

Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowl-
edge, by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but
admired, rather. She had built up for herself a real
empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace of
the world. We were content to abide the rivalries of
manufacture, science, and commerce that were involved
for us in her success and stand or fall as we had or did
not have the brains and the initiative to surpass her.
But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her
triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in
their stead what the world will no longer permit to be
established, military and political domination by arms,
by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she
most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy
that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and
happy peoples of Belgiiun and northern France from the
Prussian conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must
also deliver the peoples of Austria-Hungary, the peo-
ples of the Balkans, and the peoples of Turkey, alike
in Europe and in Asia, from the impudent and alien
dominion of the Prussian military and commercial
autocracy.

We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do
not wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what
they do with their own life, either industrially or politi-
cally. We do not purpose or desire to dictate to them in

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 346

any way. We only desire to see that their affairs are
left in their own hands, in all matters, great or small.
We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Balkan
peninsula and for the people of the Turkish Empire the
right and opportunity to make their own lives safe, their
own fortunes secure against oppression or injustice and
from the dictation of foreign courts or parties.

And our attitude and purpose with regard to Ger-
many herself are of a like kind. We intend no wrong
against the German Empire, no interference with her in-
ternal affairs. We should deem either the one or the
other absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the
principles we have professed to live by and to hold most
sacred throughout our life as a nation.

The people of Germany are being told by the men
whom they now permit to deceive them and to act as
their masters that they are fighting for the very life
and existence of their Empire, a war of desperate self-
defense against deliberate aggression. Nothing could
be more grossly or wantonly false, and we must seek by
the utmost openness and candor as to our real aims to
convince them of its falseness. We are in fact fighting
for their emancipation from fear, along with our own, —
from the fear as weU as from the fact of unjust attack
by neighbors or rivals or schemers after world empire.
No one is threatening the existence or the independence
or the peaceful enterprise of the German Empire.

The worst that can happen to the detriment of the
German people is this, that if they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under am-
bitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the

346 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the
other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be
impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations
which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace.
That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not
a mere partnership of governments. It might be impos-
sible, also, in such untoward circumstances, to admit
Germany to the free economic intercourse which must
inevitably spring out of the other partnerships of a real
peace. But there would be no aggression in that; and
such a situation, inevitable because of distrust, would
in the very nature of things sooner or later cure itself,
by processes which would assuredly set in.

The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this
war will have to be righted. That of course. But they
cannot and must not be righted by the commission of
similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The
world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs
as a means of reparation and settlement. Statesmen
must by this time have learned that the opinion of the
world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends
the issues involved. No representative of any self-
governed nation will dare disregard it by attempting
any such covenants of selfishness and compromise as
were entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The
thought of the plain people here and everywhere
throughout the world, the people who enjoy no privilege
and have very simple and unsophisticated standards of
right and wrong, is the air all governments must hence-
forth breathe if they would live. It is in the full dis-
closing light of that thought that all policies must be

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 347

conceived and executed in this midday hour of the
world's life. German rulers have been able to upset the
peace of the world only because the German people were
not suffered under their tutelage to share the comrade-
ship of the other peoples of the world either in thought
or in purpose. They were allowed to have no opinion
of their own which might be set up as a rule of conduct
for those who exercised authority over them. But the
congress that concludes this war will feel the full
strength of the tides that run now in the hearts and
consciences of free men everywhere. Its conclusion will
run with those tides.

All these things have been true from the very begin-
ning of this stupendous war ; and I cannot help thinking
that if they had been made plain at the very outset the
sympathy and enthusiasm of the Bussian people might
have been once for all enlisted on the side of the Allies,
suspicion and distrust swept away, and a real and last-
ing union of purpose effected. Had they believed these
things at the very moment of their revolution and had
they been confirmed in that belief since, the sad reverses
which have recently marked the progress of their affairs
towards an ordered and stable government of free men
might have been avoided. The Russian people have been
poisoned by the very same falsehoods that have kept the
German people in the dark, and the poison has been ad-
ministered by the very same hands. The only possible
antidote is the truth. It cannot be uttered too plainly
or too often.

From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed
to be my duty to speak these declarations of purpose, to

348 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

add these specific interpretations to what I took the lib-
erty of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance
into the war has not altered our attitude towards the
settlement that must come when it is over. When I said
in January that the nations of the world were entitled
not only to free pathways upon the sea but also to as-
sured and unmolested access to those pathways I was
thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the smaller and
weaker nations alone, which need our countenance and
support, but also of the great and powerful nations,
and of our present enemies as well as our present asso-
ciates in the war. I was thinking, and am thinking
now, of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as of
Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights
can be had only at a great price. We are seeking
permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace
of the world and must seek them candidly and fear-
lessly. As always, the right will prove to be the
expedient.

What shall we do, then, to push this great war of
freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion? We
must clear away with a thorough hand all impediments
to success and we must make every adjustment of law
that will facilitate the full and free use of our whole
capacity and force as a fighting unit.

One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our
way is that we are at war with Germany but not with
her allies. I therefore very earnestly recommend that
the Congress immediately declare the United States in a
state of war with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem
strange to you that this should be the conclusion of the

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 349

argument I have just addressed to you ? It is not. It is
in fact the inevitable logic of what I have said. Austria-
Hungary is for the time being not her own mistress but
simply the vassal of the German Government. We must
face the facts as they are and act upon them without
sentiment in this stem business. The government of
Austria-Hungary is not acting upon its own initiative
or in response to the wishes and feelings of its own peo-
ples but as the instrument of another nation. We must
meet its force with our own and regard the Central
Powers as but one. The war can be successfully con-
ducted in no other way. The same logic would lead
also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bul-
garia. They also are the tools of Germany. But they
are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of
our necessary action. We shall go wherever the necessi-
ties of this war carry us, but it seems to me that we
should go only where immediate and practical considera-
tions lead us and not heed any others.

The financial and military measures which must be
adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its under-
takings develop, but I will take the liberty of proposing
to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to me
to be needed for the support of the war and for the
release of our whole force and energy.

It will be necessary to extend in certain particulars
the legislation of the last session with regard to alien
enemies; and also necessary, I believe, to create a very
definite and particular control over the entrance and
departure of all persons into and from the United
States.

360 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Legislation should be enacted defining as a criminal
offense every willful violation of the presidential procla-
mations relating to alien enemies promulgated imder
section 4067 of the Revised Statutes and providing ap-
propriate pimishments ; and women as well as men should
be included under the terms of the acts placing restraints
upon alien enemies. It is likely that as time goes on
many alien enemies will be willing to be fed and housed
at the expense of the Government in the detention camps
and it would be the purpose of the legislation I have
suggested to confine offenders among them in penitenti-
aries and other similar institutions where they could be
made to work as other criminals do.

Recent experience has convinced me that the Con-
gress must go further in authorizing the (Government to
set limits to prices. The law of supply and demand, I
am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unre-
strained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteer-
ing in several branches of industry it still runs impu-
dently rampant in others. The farmers, for example,
complain with a great deal of justice that, while the
regulation of f obd prices restricts their incomes, no re-
straints are placed upon the prices of most of the things
they must themselves purchase; and similar inequities
obtain on all sideS.

It is imperatively necessary that the consideration
of the full use of the water power of the country and
also the consideration of the systematic and yet economi-
cal development of such of the natural resources of the
country as are still under the control of the federal gov-
ernment should be immediately resumed and affirma-

862 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Congress our whole attention and energy should be con-
centrated on the vigorous, rapid, and successful prosecu-
tion of the great task of winning the war.

We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusi-
asm because we know that for us this is a war of high
principle, debased by no selfish ambition of conquest or
spoliation; because we know, and all the world knows,
that we have been forced into it to save the very institu-
tions we live under from corruption and destruction.
The purposes of the Central Powers strike straight at
the very heart of everything we believe in; their meth-
ods of warfare outrage every principle of hiunanity and
of knightly honor ; their intrigue has corrupted the very
thought and spirit of many of our people ; their sinister
and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very terri-
tory away from us and disrupt the Union of the States.
Our safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied
and brought into contempt were we to permit their
triiunph. They are striking at the very existence of
democracy and liberty.

It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested
purpose, in which all the free peoples of the world are
banded together for the vindication of right, a war for
the preservation of our nation and of all that it has held
dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves
doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that
which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for
our foes as well as for our friends. The cause being
just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive
and quality. For this we can fight, but for nothing less
noble or less worthy of our traditions. For this cause

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 353

we enter the war and for this cause will we battle until
the last gun is fired.

I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the
time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order
that all the world may know that even in the heat and
ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is of
carrying the war through to its end we have not forgot-
ten any ideal or principle for which the name of America
has been held in honor among the nations and for which
it has been our glory to contend in the great generations
that went before us. A supreme moment of history has
come. The eyes of the people have been opened and
they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He
will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they
rise to the dear heights of His own justice and mercy*

ADDRESS ON THE CONDITIONS OF PEACE

DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF

THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS,

JANUARY 8, 1918

The Czar of Russia was, to the outward world at least, unexpectedly forced
to abdicate on March 15, 1917. Two days later his brother, the Grand Duke
Michael, in whose favor he had abdicated, renounced whatever title the late Cxar
had to convey. A provisional government was formed, which was recognized by
the United States on March 22, which, with various changes, maintained itself
in power, pursuing a checicered course between the extreme radicals and social-
ists, on the one hand, and what ^might be called the conservative or moderate
party, on the other.

On November 7, 1917, the radical elements of the socialist party, called
Bolsheviki (meaning the majority party), led by Nikolai Lenine, who had united
under his leadership the extreme elements, came into power and immediately
made overtures for an armistice and a peace with Germany and its allies, invit-
ing the other belligerents to do likewise and stating the conditions upon which
a general peace should be made. An armistice was concluded with Germany
and its allies on December 15, 1917, to last to January 14, 1918, and two days
before its expiration a further armistice was agreed upon for a month. R^re-
sentatives of the Bolshevist government met representatives of Germany and
its allies at Brest-Litovsk to discuss the terms of peace.

Germany's enemies, however, refused to consider the terms stated by the
Bolshevik government, and on January 5, 1918, during the Russo-German n^o-
tiations, Mr. Lloyd Qeorge, Prime Minister of Great Britain, delivered an ad-
dress before the Labor Conference on Man-Power in London, in which he out-
lined, after consulting the self-governing dominions of the British Empire, and
undoubtedly after an exchange of views with Britain's allies, the terms and
conditions of peace which Great Britain would consider. Three days later, under
these circtunstances, when Russia had withdrawn from the war and was in
conference with the representatives of Germany and its allies, and after Mr.
Lloyd George had stated the terms and conditions of peace as they appeared
to a European statesman, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, delivered the
following address, in which, after paying particular attention to the Russian
situation and expressing sympathy for the Russian people in the crisis through
which they were passing, he announced his agreement with the aims and pur-
poses of the countries allied against Germany, thus showing the allied govern-
ments to be in perfect accord.

Gentlemen of the Congress :

Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the
Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss

354

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 855

the objects of the war and the possible bases of a general
peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk
between Russian representatives and representatives of
the Central Powers to which the attention of all the bel-
ligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining
whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a
general conference with regard to terms of peace and set-
tlement. The Russian representatives presented not only
a perfectly definite statement of the principles upon
which they would be willing to conclude peace but also
an equally definite program of the concrete application
of those principles. The representatives of the Central
Powers, on their part, presented an outline of settlement
which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal
interpretation until their specific program of practical
terms was added. That program proposed no conces-
sions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the
preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it
dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires
were to keep every foot of territory their armed forces
had occupied, — every province, every city, every point of
vantage, — ^as a permanent addition to their territories
and their power. It is a reasonable conjecture that the
general principles of settlement which they at first sug-
gested originated with the more liberal statesmen of
Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel
the force of their own peoples' thought and purpose,
while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from
the military leaders who have no thought but to keep
what they have got. The negotiations have been broken
off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in

366 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POUCY

earnest. They cannot entertain such proposals of con-
quest and domination.

The whole incident is full of significance. It is also
full of perplexity. With whom are the Russian repre-
sentatives dealing? For whom are the representatives
of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking
for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for
the minority parties, that military and imperialistic
minority which has so far dominated their whole policy
and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the Balkan
states which have felt obliged to become their associates
in this war ? The Russian representatives have insisted,
very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modem
democracy, that the conferences they have been holding
with Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held
within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has been
audience, as was desired. To whom have we been listen-
ing, then? To those who speak the spirit and intention
of the Resolutions of the German Reichstag of the ninth
of July last, the spirit and intention of the liberal leaders
and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy
that spirit and intention and insist upon conquest and
subjugation? Or are we listening, in fact, to both, un-
reconciled and in open and hopeless contradiction?
These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon
the answer to them depends the peace of the world.

But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-
Litovsk, whatever the confusions of coimsel and of pur-
pose in the utterances of the spokesmen of the Central
Empires, they have again attempted to acquaint the
world with their objects in the war and have again chal-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 357

lenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and
what sort of settlement they would deem just and satis-
factory. There is no good reason why that challenge
should not be responded to, and responded to with the
utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not once, but
again and again, we have laid our whole thought and
purpose before the world, not in general terms only, but
each time with sufficient definition to make it clear what
sort of definitive terms of settlement must necessarily
spring out of them. Within the last week Mr. Lloyd
George has spoken with admirable candor and in ad-
mirable spirit for the people and Government of Great
Britain. There is no confusion of counsel among the
adversaries of the Central Powers, no uncertainty of
principle, no vagueness of detail. The only secrecy of
counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only
failure to make definite statement of the objects of the
war, lies with Germany and her Allies. The issues of
life and death hang upon these definitions. No states-
man who has the least conception of his responsibility
ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this
tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure
unless he is sure beyond a peradventure that the objects
of the vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life
of Society and that the people for whom he speaks think
them right and imperative as he does.

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these defini-
tions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems to
me, more thrilling and more compelling than any of the
many moving voices with which the troubled air of the
world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people.

858 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem,
before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto
known no relenting and no pity. Their power, appar-
ently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient.
They will not yield either in principle or in action.
Their conception of what is right, of what it is humane
and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a
frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and
a universal human sympathy which must challenge the
admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have
refused to compound their ideals or desert others that
they themselves may be safe. They call to us to say what
it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purpose
and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that
the people of the United States would wish me to re-
spond, with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether
their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heart-
felt desire and hope that some way may be opened
whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of
Bussia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered
peace.

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of
peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and
that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret
understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and
aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret
covenants entered into in the interest of particular gov-
ernments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to
upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now
clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do
not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 869

makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are
consistent with justice and the peade of the world to avow
now or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had
occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life
of our own people impossible unless they were corrected
and the world secured once for all against their recur-
rence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is noth-
ing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made
fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made
safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own,
wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions,
be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peo-
ples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.
All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this
interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that
unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.
The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our pro-
gram; and that program, the only possible program, as
we see it, is this :

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after
which there shall be no private international understand-
ings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always
frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas,
outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, ex-
cept as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by
international action for the enforcement of international
covenants.

m. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic
barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade

360 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace
and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that na-
tional armaments will be reduced to the lowest point
consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial ad-
justment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict
observance of the principle that in determining all such
questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations
concerned must have equal weight with the equitable
claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Eussian territory and such
a settlement of all questions affecting Bussia as will
secure the best and freest co-operation of the other
nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered
and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
determination of her own political development and
national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into
the society of free nations under institutions of her
own choosing ; and, more than a welcome, assistance also
of every kind that she may need and may herself desire.
The treatment accorded Bussia by her sister nations in
the months to come will be the acid test of their good
will, of their comprehension of her needs as distin-
guished from their own interests, and of their intelligent
and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgiiun, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the
sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other
free nations. No other single act will serve as this will
serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 361

which they have themselves set and determined for the
government of their relations with one another. With-
out this healing act the whole structure and validity of
international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the
invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France
by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine,
which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly
fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may
once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should
be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nation-
ality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place
among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and
assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of
autonomous development.

XI. Biunania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be
evacuated ; occupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded
free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of
the several Balkan states to one another determined by
friendly counsel along historically established lines of
allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees
of the political and economic independence and terri-
torial integrity of the several Balkan states should be
entered into.

Xn. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman
Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the
other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule
should be assured an undoubted security of life and an
absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous de-

362 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

velopment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently
opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of
all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected
which should include the territories inhabited by indis-
putably Polish populations, which should be assured a
free and secure access to the sea, and whose political
and economic independence and territorial integrity
should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be
formed under specific covenants for the purpose of af-
fording mutual guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong
and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate
partners of all the governments and peoples associated
together against the Imperialists. We cannot be sepa-
rated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand to-
gether until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing
to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved ;
but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire
a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by
removing the chief provocations to war, which this pro-
gram does remove. We have no jealousy of German
greatness, and there is nothing in this program that
impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinc-
tion of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have
made her record very bright and very enviable. We do
not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legiti-
mate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 863

either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade
if she is willing to associate herself with us and the
other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of
justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to
accept a place of equality among the peoples of the
world, — ^the new world in which we now live, — ^instead
of a place of mastery.

Neither do we presume to suggest to her any altera-
tion or modification of her institutions. But it is neces-
sary, we must frankly say, and necessary as a pre-
liminary to any intelligent dealings with her on our part,
that we should know whom her spokesmen speak for
when they speak to us, whether for the Reichstag ma-
jority or for the military party and the men whose creed
is imperial domination.

We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete
to admit of any further doubt or question. An evident
principle runs through the whole program I have out-
lined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and
nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of
liberty and safety with one another, whether they be
strong or weak. Unless this principle be made its
foundation no part of the structure of international
justice can stand. The people of the United States could
act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of
this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their
honor, and everything that they possess. The moral
climax of this the culminating and final war for human
liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own
strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity
and devotion to the test.

REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES OF THE IMPE-
RIAL GERMAN CHANCELLOR, AND THE
IMPERIAL AND ROYAL AUSTRO-
HUNGARIAN MINISTER FOR
FOREIGN AFFAIRS

ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION
OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS,

FEBRUARY 11, 1918

In the course of an address delivered on January 24, 1918 before the
Reichsrat, Count Gzemin, Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, is
reported bj the Press to have said, explaining the negotiations then in progress
with Russia, that while peace could not be matured within twenty-four hours,
he was convinced that, "it is now maturing and that the question whether
or not an honorable general peace can be secured is merely a question of
resistance." Referring to the address of January 8, 1918, he remarked that,
*' President Wilson's peace offer confirms me in this opinion. Naturally an
offer of this kind cannot be regarded as a matter acceptable in every detail,
for that obviously would render any negotiations superfluous," that he con*
sidered, " the recent proposals of President Wilson as an appreciable approach
to the Austro-Hungarian point of view, and that to some of them Austria-
Hungary joyfully could give her approval," and finally, that, ''It is obvious
to me that an exchange of views between America and Austria-Hungary might
form the starting point for a conciliatory discussion among all the States
which have not yet entered into peace negotiations.'*

Gentlemen op the Congress:

On the eighth of January I had the honor of ad-
dressing you on the objects of the war as our people
conceive them. The Prime Minister of Great Britain
had spoken in similar terms on the fifth of January.
To these addresses the German Chancellor replied on
the twenty-fourth and Count Czernin, for Austria, on

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 865

the same day. It is gratifying to have our desire so
promptly realized that all exchanges of view on this
great matter should be made in the hearing of aU the
world.

Count Czemin's reply, which is directed chiefly to
my own address of the eighth of January, is uttered in a
very friendly tone. He finds in my statement a suffi-
ciently encouraging approach to the views of his own
Government to justify him in believing that it furnishes
a basis for a more detailed discussion of purposes by
the two Governments. He is represented to have inti-
mated that the views he was expressing had been com-
municated to me beforehand and that I was aware of
them at the time he was uttering them : but in this I am
sure he was misunderstood. I had received no intima-
tion of what he intended to say. There was, of course,
no reason why he should communicate privately with
me. I am quite content to be one of his public
audience.

Count von Hertling's reply is, I must say, very
vague and very confusing. It is full of equivocal
phrases and leads it is not clear where. But it is cer-
tainly in a very different tone from that of Count
Czemin, and apparently of an opposite purpose. It
confirms, I am sorry to say, rather than removes, the
unfortunate impression made by what we had learned
of the conferences at Brest-Litovsk. His discussion and
acceptance of our general principles lead him to no
practical conclusions. He refuses to apply them to the
substantive items which must constitute the body of any
final settlement. He is jealous of international action

366 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

and of international counsel. He accepts, he says, the
principle of public diplomacy, but he appears to insist
that it be confined, at any rate in this case, to gen-
eralities and that the several particular questions of
territory and sovereignty, the several questions upon
whose settlement must depend the acceptance of peace
by the twenty-three states now engaged in the war, must
be discussed and settled, not in general council, but sev-
erally by the nations most immediately concerned by
interest or neighborhood. He agrees that the seas
should be free, but looks askance at any limitation to
that freedom by international action in the interest of
the common order. He would without reserve be glad
to see economic barriers removed between nation and
nation, for that could in no way impede the ambitions
of the military party with whom he seems constrained
to keep on terms. Neither does he raise objection to
a limitation of armaments. That matter wiU be settled
of itself, he thinks, by the economic conditions which
must follow the war. But the Gterman colonies, he
demands, must be returned without debate. He will
discuss with no one but the representatives of Russia
what disposition shall be made of the peoples and the
lands of the Baltic provinces; with no one but the
Government of France the "conditions'' under which
French territory shall be evacuated ; and only with Aus-
tria what shall be done with Poland. In the determina-
tion of all questions affecting the Balkan states he
defers, as I understand him, to Austria and Turkey;
and with regard to the agreements to be entered into
concerning the non-Turkish peoples of the present Otto-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 867

man Empire, to the Turkish authorities themselves.
After a settlement all around, effected in this fashion,
by individual barter and concession, he would have no
objection, if I correctly interpret his statement, to a
league of nations which would undertake to hold the
new balance of power steady against external disturb-
ance.

It must be evident to everyone who understands what
this war has wrought in the opinion and temper of the
world that no general peace, no peace worth the infinite
sacrifices of these years of tragical suffering, can pos-
sibly be arrived at in any such fashion. The method
the German Chancellor proposes is the method of the
Congress of Vienna. We cannot and will not return to
that. What is at stake now is the peace of the world.
What we are striving for is a new international order
based upon broad and universal principles of right and
justice, — ^no mere peace of shreds and patches. Is it
possible that Count von Hertling does not see that, does
not grasp it, is in fact living in his thought in a world
dead and gone? Has he utterly forgotten the Reichs-
tag Resolutions of the nineteenth of July, or does he
deliberately ignore them ? They spoke of the conditions
of a general peace, not of national aggrandizement or of
arrangements between state and state. The peace of the
world depends upon the just settlement of each of the
several problems to which I adverted in my recent ad-
dress to the Congress. I, of course, do not mean that
the peace of the world depends upon the acceptance of
any particular set of suggestions as to the way in which
those problems are to be dealt with. I mean only that

868 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

those problems each and all affect the whole world;
that unless they are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish
and unbiased justice, with a view to the wishes, the
natural connections, the racial aspirations, the security,
and the peace of mind of the peoples involved, no perma-
nent peace will have been attained. They cannot be
discussed separately or in corners. None of them con-
stitutes a private or separate interest from which the
opinion of the world may be shut out. Whatever affects
the peace affects mankind, and nothing settled by mili-
tary force, if settled wrong, is settled at all. It will
presently have to be reopened.

Is Count von Hertling not aware that he is speaking
in the coiu*t of mankind, that all the awakened nations
of the world now sit in judgment on what every public
man, of whatever nation, may say on the issues of a
conflict which has spread to every region of the world!
The Reichstag Resolutions of July themselves frankly
accepted the decisions of that coiu*t. There shall be no
annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages.
Peoples are not to be handed about from one sov-
ereignty to another by an international conference or
an understanding between rivals and antagonists. Na-
tional aspirations must be respected; peoples may now
be dominated and governed only by their own consent.
** Self-determination'' is not a mere phrase. It is an
imperative principle of action, which statesmen will
henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have gen-
eral peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements
of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together
out of individual understandings between powerful

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 869

states. All the parties to this war must join in the set-
tlement of every issue anywhere involved in it ; because
what we are seeking is a peace that we can all imite
to guarantee and maintain and every item of it must be
submitted to the common judgment whether it be right
and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain be-
tween sovereigns.

The United States has no desire to interfere in
European affairs or to act as arbiter in European
territorial disputes. She would disdain to take advan-
tage of any internal weakness or disorder to impose her
own will upon another people. She is quite ready to be
shown that the settlements she has suggested are not
the best or the most enduring. They are only her
own provisional sketch of principles and of the way
in which they should be applied. But she entered this
war because she was made a partner, whether she would
or not, in the sufferings and indignities inflicted by the
military masters of Germany, against the peace and
security of mankind; and the conditions of peace will
touch her as nearly as they will touch any other nation
to which is entrusted a leading part in the maintenance
of civilization. She cannot see her way to peace until
the causes of this war are removed, its renewal rendered
as nearly as may be impossible.

This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights
of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the
union and the force to make good their claim to deter-
mine their own allegiances and their own forms of
political life. Covenants must now be entered into
which will render such things impossible for the future ;

370 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

and those covenants must be backed by the united force
of all the nations that love justice and are willing to
maintain it at any cost. If territorial settlements and
the political relations of great populations which have
not the organized power to resist are to be determined
by the contracts of the powerful governments which con-
sider themselves most directly affected, as Count von
Hertling proposes, why may not economic questions
also ? It has come about in the altered world in which
we now find ourselves that justice and the rights of peo-
ples affect the whole field of international dealing as
much as access to raw materials and fair and equal
conditions of trade. Count von Hertling wants the
essential bases of commercial and industrial life to be
safeguarded by common agreement and guarantee, but
he cannot expect that to be conceded him if the other
matters to be determined by the articles of peace are
not handled in the same way as items in the final ac-
counting. He cannot ask the benefit of common agree-
ment in the one field without according it in the other.
I take it for granted that he sees that separate and
selfish compacts with regard to trade and the essential
materials of manufacture would afford no foundation
for peace. Neither, he may rest assured, will separate
and selfish compacts with regard to provinces and
peoples.

Count Czernin seems to see the fundamental ele-
ments of peace with clear eyes and does not seek to
obscure them. He sees that an independent Poland,
made up of all the indisputably Polish peoples who lie
contiguous to one another, is a matter of European con-

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 871

cern and must of course be conceded ; that Belgium must
be evacuated and restored, no matter what sacrifices
and concessions that may involve; and that national
aspirations must be satisfied, even within his own Em-
pire, in the common interest of Europe and mankind.
If he is silent about questions which touch the interest
and purpose of his allies more nearly than they touch
those of Austria only, it must of course be because
he feels constrained, I suppose, to defer to Germany
and Turkey in the circumstances. Seeing and conced-
ing, as he does, the essential principles involved and
the necessity of candidly applying them, he naturally
feels that Austria can respond to the purpose of peace
as expressed by the United States with less embarrass-
ment than could Germany. He would probably have
gone much farther had it not been for the embarrass-
ments of Austria's alliances and of her dependence upon
Germany.

After all, the test of whether it is possible for either
government to go any further in this comparison of
views is simple and obvious. The priijiciples to be
applied are these:

First, that each part of the final settlement must be
based upon the essential justice of that particular case
and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a
peace that will be permanent ;

Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be
bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if
they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even
the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance
of power; but that

872 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

Third, every territorial settlement involved in this
wax must be made in the interest and for the benefit of
the populations concerned, and not as a part of any
mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival
states; and

Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall
be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded
them without introducing new or perpetuating old ele-
ments of discord and antagonism that would be likely
in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently
of the world.

A general peace erected upon such foundations can
be discussed. Until such a peace can be secured we have
no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these
principles that we regard as fundamental are already
everywhere accepted as imperative except among the
spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in
Germany. If they have anywhere else been rejected, the
objectors have not been sufficiently nmnerous or influen-
tial to make their voices audible. The tragical circum-
stance is that this one party in Germany is apparently
willing and able to send millions of men to their death to
prevent what all the world now sees to be just.

I would not be a true spokesman of the people of the
United States if I did not say once more that we entered
this war upon no small occasion, and that we can never
turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our
resources are in part mobilized now, and we shall not
pause until they are mobilized in their entirety. Our
armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and wiU
go more and more rapidly. Our whole strength will be

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 373

put into this war of emancipation, — emancipation from
the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of
autocratic rulers, — ^whatever the difficulties and present
partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of in-
dependent action and can in no circumstances consent
to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We
believe that our own desire for new international order
under which reason and justice and the common inter-
ests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened
men everywhere. Without that new order the world wiU
be without peace and human life will lack tolerable con-
ditions of existence and development. Having set our
hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.
I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no
word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That
is not the temper of our people. I have spoken thus
only that the whole world may know the true spirit of
America, — ^that men everywhere may know that our pas-
sion for justice and for self-government is no mere
passion of words but a passion which, once set in action,
must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a
menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in
aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish in-
terest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for
the service of freedom.

AFTER ONE YEAR OF WAR

ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE THIRD
LIBERTY LOAN CAMPAIGN, BALTIMORE,

APRIL 6, 1918

On February 26, 1918, the Imperial German Chancellor, Count von Hertling,
speaking in the Reichstag, said that he could accept the four principles laid
down in President Wilson's last address, provided they be recognized by all
estates and peoples and that the principle of self-determination be applied to
Ireland, Egypt and India. He further stated that Germany would not adopt
an antagonistic attitude if a proposal be made from Belgium, as Germany had
repeatedly announced that it did not contemplate retaining Belgium, although
its interests in that country must and should be safeguarded. ** Meanwhile," to
quote his exact language, *' I readily admit that President Wilson's message of
February 11 constitutes perhaps a small step toward neutral rapprochement"

On March 8, 1918, as indicating the sense in which President Wilson's four
principles, with which the Chancellor said he agreed, were to be applied, Germany
wrung from Russia a peace, by the terms of which that country ceded Batum,
ELars and Ardahan to Turkey, renounced its sovereignty over Courland, Poland
and Lithuania, excepting a part of the province of Grodno, consented to evacuate
Lavonia and Esthonia and to recognize Finland and Ukraine as Independent
Powers.

President Wilson did not reply at the time to Count von Hertling's address,
but, taking advantage of the first anniversary of the existence of war between
the United States and the Imperial German Government, he stated anew, and
at the end of the first year, the reasons which had caused the United States
to declare war, the aims and purposes of that war, and the conditions upon
which the United States could consent to discuss a peace as equitable as it is
hoped to be permanent.

Fellow CmzENS:

This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Ger-
many's challenge to fight for our right to live and be
free, and for the sacred rights of free men everywhere.
The Nation is awake. There is no need to call to it.
We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice,
the lives of our fittest men and, if need be, all that we
possess. The loan we are met to discuss is one of the

874

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 875

least parts of what we are called upon to give and to do,
though in itself imperative. The people of the whole
country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to
lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp
skimping and daily sacrifice to lend out of meager earn-
ings. They will look with reprobation and contempt
upon those who can and will not, upon those who
demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think
of it as a mere commercial transaction. I have not
come, therefore, to urge the loan. I have come only to
give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it
is for.

The reason for this great war, the reason why it had
to come, the need to fight it through, and the issues that
hang upon its outcome, are more clearly disclosed now
than ever before. It is easy to see just what this par-
ticular loan means because the Cause we are fighting for
stands more sharply revealed than at any previous crisis
of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least
can now see plainly how the cause of Justice stands and
what the imperishable thing is he is asked to invest in.
Men in America may be more sure than they ever were
before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should
be lost, their own great Nation's place and mission in
the world would be lost with it.

I call you to witness, my fellow countrjmaen, that at
no stage of this terrible business have I judged the pur-
poses of Germany intemperately. I should be ashamed
in the presence of affairs so grave, so fraught with the
destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak
with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or

876 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would be
judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has
in this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and
to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal
with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own

purposes, without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have

asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek.

We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no ag-
gression. We are ready, whenever the final reckoning
is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly
with the German power, as with all others. There can
be no difference between peoples in the final judgment,
if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To pro-
pose anything but justice, even-handed and dispas-
sionate justice, to Germany at any time, whatever
the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dis-
honor our own cause. For we ask nothing that we are
not willing to accord.

It has been with this thought that I have sought to
learn from those who spoke for Germany whether it was
justice or dominion and the execution of their own wiU
upon the other nations of the world that the German
leaders were seeking. They have answered, answered in
unmistakable terms. They have avowed that it was not
justice but dominion and the unhindered execution of
their own will.

The avowal has not come from Germany's statesmen.
It has come from her military leaders, who are her real
rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace,
and were ready to discuss its terms whenever their oppo-
nents were willing to sit down at the conference table

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 877

with them. Her present Chancellor has said, — ^in in-
definite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that
often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much
plainness as he thought prudent, — ^that he believed that
peace should be based upon the principles which we had
declared would be our own in the final settlement. At
Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar
terms; professed their desire to conclude a fair peace
and accord to the peoples with whose fortunes they were
dealing the right to choose their own allegiances. But
action accompanied and followed the profession. Their
military masters, the men who act for Germany and
exhibit her purpose in execution, proclaimed a very dif-
ferent conclusion. We cannot mistake what they have
done, — ^in Eussia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Rou-
mania. The real test of their justice and fair play has
come. From this we may judge the rest. They are
enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no brave
or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people,
helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their
mercy. Their fair professions are forgotten. They no-
where set up justice, but everywhere impose their power
and exploit everything for their own use and aggrandize-
ment; and the peoples of conquered provinces are in-
vited to be free under their dominion!

Are we not justified in believing that they would do
the same things at their western front if they were not
there face to face with armies whom even their countless
divisions cannot overcome? If, when they have felt
their check to be final, they should propose favorable and
equitable terms with regard to Belgium and France

878 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POUCY

and Italy, could they blame us if we concluded that they
did so only to assure themselves of a free hand in
Eussia and the East?

Their purpose is undoubtedly to make all the Slavic
peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic
peninsula, all the lands that Turkey has dominated and
misruled, subject to their will and ambition and build
upon that dominion an empire of force upon which they
fancy that they can then erect an empire of gain and
commercial supremacy, — ^an empire as hostile to the
Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe, — ^an
empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and
the peoples of the Far East. In such a programme our
ideals, the ideals of justice and humanity and liberty,
the principle of the free self-determination of nations
upon which all the modern world insists, can play no
part. They are rejected for the ideals of power, for the
principle that the strong must rule the weak, that trade
must follow the flag, whether those to whom it is taken
welcome it or not, that the peoples of the world are to be
made subject to the patronage and overlordship of those
who have the power to enforce it.

That programme once carried out, America and aU
who care or dare to stand with her must arm and pre-
pare themselves to contest the mastery of the World, a
mastery in which the rights of common men, the rights
of women and of all who are weak, must for the time
being be trodden under foot and disregarded, and the
old, age-long struggle for freedom and right begin again
at its beginning. Everything that America has lived
for and loved and grown great to vindicate and bring

MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 879

to a glorious realization will have fallen in utter ruin
and the gates of mercy once more pitilessly shut upon
mankind!

The thing is preposterous and impossible ; and yet is
not that what the whole course and action of the Ger-
man armies has meant wherever they have moved? I
do not wish, even in this moment of utter disillusion-
ment, to judge Jiarshly or unrighteously. I judge only
what the German arms have accomplished with unpity-
ing thoroughness throughout every fair region they have
touched.

What, then, are we to do? For myself, I am ready,
ready still, ready even now, to discuss a fair and just
and honest peace at any time that it is sincerely pur-
posed, — ^a peace in which the strong and the weak shall
fare alike. But the answer, when I proposed such a
peace, came from the German commanders in Eussia,
and I cannot mistake the meaning of the answer.

I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it.
All the world shall know that you accept it. It shall
appear in the utter sacrifice and self-f orgetfulness with
which we shall give all that we love and all that we have
to redeem the world and make it fit for free men like
ourselves to live in. This now is the meaning of all
that we do. Let everything that we say, my fellow
countrymen, everything that we henceforth plan and
accomplish, ring true to this response till the majesty
and might of our concerted power shall fiU the thought
and utterly defeat the force of those who flout and mis-
prize what we honor and hold dear. Germany has once
more said that force, and force alone, shall decide

880 PRESIDENT WILSON'S FOREIGN POLICY

whether Justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of
men, whether Eight as America conceives it or Do-
minion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies
of mankind. There is, therefore, but one response pos-
sible from us: Force, Force to the utmost. Force with-
out stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force
which shall make Bight the law of the world, and cast
every selfish dominion down in the dust.

APPENDIX

(

^9:

, f '

■ »•

-ii

■hi

•i

APPENDIX

(1) Mexico: The Record of a Convebsation with Pbesident

Wilson^

By Samuel G. Blythe

''My ideal is an orderly and righteous government in Me3dco; but
my passion is for the submerged 85 per cent of the people of that Re-
public, who are now struggling toward liberty.**

The President closed his fingers into a sinewy fist. He leaned
forward in his chair — Cleaned forward as a man leans forward who is
about to start on a race, his body taut, his muscles tense. I could see
the cords stand out on the back of his neck. His eyes were narrowed,
his lips slightly parted, his vigor and earnestness impressive.

Bang ! He hit the desk with that clenched fist. The paper knife
rattled against the tray and a few open letters stirred a bit from the
jar of the blow.

''I challenge you," he said, ''to cite me an instance in all the his-
tory of the world where liberty was handed down from above. Lib-
erty always is attained by the forces working below, underneath, by
the great movement of the people. That, leavened by the sense of
wrong and oppression and injustice, by the ferment of human rights
to be attained, brings freedom." The President relaxed from his
tense attitude and smiled.

"It is a curious thing," he continued, "that every demand for the
establishment of order in Mexico takes into consideration, not order
for the benefit of the people of Mexico, the great mass of the popula-
tion, but order for the benefit of the old-time regime, for the aristo-
crats, for the vested interests, for the men who are responsible for
this very condition of disorder. No one asks for order because order
will help the masses of the people to get a portion of their rights and
their land; but all demand it so that the great owners of property,
the overlords, the hidalgos, the men who have exploited that rich
country for their own selfish purposes, shall be able to continue their
processes undisturbed by the protests of the people from whom their
wealth and power have been obtained.

* Congressional Record, May 23, 1914.

8S8

384 APPENDIX

' ' The dangers that beset the Republic are held to be the individual
and corporate troubles of these men, not the aggregated injustices
that have been heaped on this vastly greater section of the popula-
tion that is now struggling to recover by force what has always been
theirs by right.

'*They want order — the old order; but I say to you that the old
order is dead. It is my part, as I see it, to aid in composing those
differences so far as I may be able, that the new order, which will
have its foundation on human liberty and human rights, shall prevail. ' '

We were sitting in the old Cabinet room, on the second floor of
the White House, now changed to a library and workroom for the
President. Two sides of the walls are lined with books, and oppo-
site the mantel there hangs a great picture of the signing of the
Spanish War peace treaty, showing President McEanley gazing be-
nignantly at Secretary Day and the Spanish commissioner, who,
seated side by side, are writing their names on the document that
formally ended the war of 1898. A great globe stands in the comer —
a great blue globe, with many lines traced on it, many lines running
from Washington to the south. There was a cluster of red roses in
the comer, and a little breeze fluttered the curtains of the windows
that looked out on the fountain, the wonderful masses of bloom on
the flowering trees, the new, soft green of the leaves, and the velvet
of the grass. A searchlight played on the tip of the Washington
Monument, and, far back, the Dome of the Capitol swam mistily in
the silver light of the new moon.

The President was in evening dress, and he seemed strong and
vigorous as he sat facing me at the side of his desk. He was waiting
to go to a conference between the Attorney General, the Secretary of
War, and Senator Thomas, of Colorado, over the mining strike in the
Senator's State.

We talked for three-quarters of an hour. The President went
freely and frankly into the situation — ^told his ideals, his hopes, his
plans, his conclusions — dealing, of course, with the subject in a gen-
eral rather than in a specific way, because of the length of time I told
him must ensue between the talk and the publication of what I might
write concerning it, and the knowledge that in a day-to-day event like
this, with its constantly shifting series of happenings, summaries
must be resorted to rather than immediate comment.

As a result of my conversation with the President, which was on
the evening of April 27, only a few hours after word had come that
Huerta would accept the offer of mediation made by the representa-
tives of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, I can state these conclusions.

APPENDIX 885

which will endure regardless of the outcome of mediation negotiations.
The settled policy of the President in regard to Mexico will be as
follows :

First. The United States, so long as Mr. Wilson is President, will
not seek to gain a foot of Mexican territory in any way or uilder any
pretext. When we have finished with Mexico, Mexico will be terri-
torially intact.

Second. No personal aggrandizement by American investors or
adventurers or capitalists, or exploitation of that country, will be
permitted. Legitimate business interests that seek to develop rather
than exploit will be encouraged.

Third. A settlement of the agrarian land question by constitu-
tional means — such as that followed in New Zealand, for example-
will be insisted on.

These are the materialistic ideals of President Wilson, the main
points he has firmly in his mind. His future policy will rest on these
foundations, regardless of what the moment may inject into the
situation in the way of minor questions.

We talked for a few moments on that April evening of the historic
associations of the portion of the White House where we were, which,
until the time of President Roosevelt, was used by the Presidents as
office and workroom by the clerical force, by the Cabinet, and as the
public reception room. It was in this part of the White House that
all the preliminaries of the Spanish War were decided on by President
McEinley, and it was this portion of the White House that President
Lincoln occupied as his office and workroom during the Civil War.
Now it makes up a part of the home space in the White House ; but
in that library where we were sitting, and where McEonley's Cabinet
debated the Spanish War and Lincoln's Cabinet debated the Civil
War, a great many of the problems of Mexico, whether war problems
or peace problems, have been and will be considered by President
Wilson.

**Mr. President," I began, **I have recently been through the
country somewhat, and I am constantly meeting men who have arrived
from various States. I find and they find that, though the people of
this country are patriotic and are loyally standing by the administra-
tion, they do not, as a whole, know just what they are patriotic about. ' '

''I have found that to be true, in a measure, myself," said the
President, ''and I am glad of an opportunity to explain my ideas
and my ideals on the subject."

He stopped for a moment, as though to select a place for begin-
ning. I noticed that his face, instead of being pale, as it was the

886 APPENDIX

last time I saw him, was burned by the sun; that his eye was dear
and bright, and his whole attitude that of a man who is strong and
well. I noticed, too, that his hands were not burned by the sun ; and
as he talked I watched those hands and observed how he used them
constantly — not in widespread gestures, but rather in supplementary
and interpretative motions, as though he were a musician speaking
the score of his music and playing the notes with his fingers as he
went along. I doubt whether his hands, except when he thwacked the
desk, moved more than twelve inches one way or the other ; but they
seemed almost a part of his speech and expressed his various atti-
tudes of mind and emotion when he proceeded as vividly as did the
intonation of his voice and the emphasis of his words.

He sat back in his chair and half closed his eyes. His fingers
laced and interlaced. Then he began to talk clearly, simply, with a
clarity of diction, a sequence of thought, and a lucidity of expres-
sion that seemed even more remarkable than it really was when
compared with the muddied speech of many of our statesmen. Now
and then he used a colloquialism. Once or twice he dropped into
slang. He spoke of someone ''butting in," and he said, ''We must
hump ourselves." He marshaled his facts with such precision and
presented his ideas so cogently that it was apparent his viewpoint was
the result of a long and continuous study of every phase of the minor
problems involved in the great problem. Why are we in Mexico, and
what are we going to do there?

"Every phase of the Mexican situation," the President said, "is
based on the condition that those in de facto control of the government
must be relieved of that control before Mexico can realize her manifest
destiny."

The President made it clear that the United States has no quarrel
with the Mexican people and that the Mexican people should have no
quarrel with us. He sketched the conditions in Mexico under Diaz
and came to the underlying cause for all the unrest in that country
for many years. This, he said, was the fight for the land — ^just that
and nothing more.

He pointed out how the landed aristocracy, originally given con-
trol of vast tracts of land by Spanish grants, had during succeeding
years, by coercion, absorption, and by other methods of force, and
with the support of the Qovemment, taken away from the small land-
owners most of their properties and had created the feudal estates^
where the people were virtually slaves.

These processes were followed by the passage of a general law
which made legal the condemnation of all land to the State that was

APPENDIX 387

not secured by a title which complied with provisions in the law
that made most of the titles, of the properties the landed aristocracy
wanted, easy of annulment. Farm after farm passed into the control
of the big landowners, and there was no recourse for the former
owners or for their families but to work at dictated terms and prac-
tically as slaves on the land that had formerly been theirs.

** Fortunately for the peons, but unfortunately for himself," the
President continued, ''Diaz permitted the establishment of a public
school system. He himself said he raised up the instrument that
brought about his own destruction — the school system."

Weak and incomplete as this school system was and is, it never-
theless had the effect of helping in great measure toward the partial
education of a su£Scient number of the peons to make it easy for agi-
tators to start revolutions. Revolutions were started. Finally there
came the successful revolution of Madero and his supporters and
the exile of Diaz. This was followed by the killing of Madero and
the assumption of power by Huerta. The present revolution, like all
preceding revolutions, is primarily a revolution by the peons who
want to regain their land.

''To some extent," the President said, "the situation in Mexico
is similar to that in France at the time of the revolution. There are
wide differences in many ways," he continued, "but the basic situa-
tion has many resemblances."

After the accession of Huerta the President definitely decided not
to recognize that alleged government and remained firm in that re-
solve. However, for many months he has not been unaware that a
situation was developing which would force him to make an active
movement against Mexico, or the alleged Huerta government of
Mexico, and would bring about such a condition as existed at the
time mediation was suggested.

"It has been a difScult situation," he said, "because so many
elements of it have been without our control and our territory. In a
domestic matter we can see our way clear, because ordinarily all the
elements are within our view and consideration ; but here was a trouble
that had its active movements in another and an adjacent and a some-
what remote country, and we were forced to sit and watch and await
such developments as might be. I have known for months that some
such thing could happen — ^was inevitable, in fact — ^and my prayer
was that it might not be a calamity."

Then came the incident at Tampico. Bear Admiral Mayo, resent-
ing the insult to the flag, issued his demand for an apology, and the
President and his Cabinet stepped in behind the admiral.

888 APPENDIX

''Really/' said the President, ''it was a psychological moment

, if that phrase is not too trite to be used. There was no great disaster

like the sinking of the Maine, and there was an adequate reason for

our action in this culminating insult of a series of insults to our

country and our flag. ' '

The President followed with his emphatic declaration that his pas-
sion is for the great masses of the Mexican people, and his statement
that his sole object in Mexico is to help the people secure the liberty
which he holds is fully theirs by right.

"The function of being a policeman in Mexico has not appealed
to me, nor does it appeal to our people," he said. "Our duty is
higher than that. If we are to go in there, restore order, and immedi-
ately get out, and invite a repetition of conflict similar to that which
is in progress now, we had better have remained out.

"What we must do and what we hope to do are twofold: First,
we hope to show the world that our friendship for Mexico is a dis-
interested friendship, so far as our own aggrandizement goes; and,
second, we hope to prove to the world that the Monroe Doctrine is not
what the rest of the world, including some of the countries in this
hemisphere, contends — ^merely an excuse for the gaining of territory
for ourselves.

' ' I hold this to be a wonderful opportunity to prove to the world
that the United States of America is not only human but humane ; that
we are actuated by no other motives than the betterment of the con-
ditions of our unfortunate neighbor, and by the sincere desire td ad-
vance the cause of human liberty."

The situation, he pointed out, is intolerable, and requires the
strong guiding hand of the great Nation on this continent that, by
every appeal of right and justice, and the love for order, and the hope
for peace and prosperity, must assist these warring people back into
the paths of quiet and prosperity. We have an object lesson to give
to the rest of the world: an object lesson that will prove to the
skeptical outsiders that this Nation rises superior to considerations of
added power and scorns an opportunity for territorial aggrandize-
ment; an object lesson that will show to the people of this, our own,
hemisphere that we are sincerely and unselfishly the friends of all of
them, and particularly the friends of the Mexican people, with no
other idea than the idea and the ideal of helping them compose their
differences, starting them on the road to continued peace and renewed
prosperity, and leaving them to work out their own destiny, but
watching them narrowly and insisting that they shall take help when
help is needed.

APPENDIX 889

^*I have not permitted myself to think of what vdll be the out-
come of these plans for mediation/' the President said. '^I hope
they may be successful. In any event, we shall deem it our duty to
help the Mexican people, and we shall continue until we have satis-
factory knowledge that peace has been restored, that a constitutional
government is reorganized, and that the way is open for the peaceful
reorganization of that harassed country.

**We shall not demand a foot of territory nor a cent of money —
except, of course, the settlement of such claims as may justly be made
by American citizens for damages to their property during these dis-
turbances — ^individual claims. There will be no money demand in a
national sense. Then we shall have shown the entire world that the
Monroe Doctrine means an unselfish friendship for our neighbors — a
disinterested friendship, in the sense of not being interested in our
aggrandizement — and that our motives are only the motives inspired
by the higher humanity, by our sense of duty and responsibility, and
by our determination that human liberty shall prevail in our hemi-
sphere. ' '

The President paused. He had been intensely in earnest in his
talk. He smiled, and his long white fingers wove themselves in and
out. Then, with a little gesture that betokened amused contempt, he
continued :

* * They say the Mexicans are not fitted for self-government ; and to
this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not fitted
for self-government. The very fact that the extension of the school
system by Diaz brought about a certain degree of understanding
among some of the people, which caused them to awaken to their
wrongs and to strive intelligently for their rights, makes that con-
tention absurd. I do not hold that the Mexican peons are at present as
capable of self-government as other people— ours, for example — ^but I
do hold that the widespread sentiment that they never will be and
never can be made to be capable of self-government is as wickedly false
as it is palpably absurd."

He paused again.

''Did you see that dispatch we gave out, from Consul Gkneral
Hanna, which detailed his experiences with the army at Torreont
It was a sort of diary of his adventures and a record of what he saw.
We gave it all out ; but the latter part of it was not widely printed,
for the first part of it was full of bloody details of the battle. I sup-
pose" — and he smiled whimsically again — ''I suppose the editors felt
there was no particular interest in the peaceful and gratifying in-
formation that was in the latter portion of the dispatch.

890 APPENDIX

' * Well, if you read that dispatch, you learned that Mr. Hanna was
most agreeably surprised and greatly gratified by the treatment Villa 's
men gave their prisoners ; how they endeavored to live up to the rules
of civilized warfare ; how they were constantly on the lookout for new
information that would relieve them of the stigma of being bar-
barians. This merely shows that these people, if they get the chance,
are capable of learning and are anxious to learn."

The President returned to the question of mediation and what it
might bring forth, but has not information beyond the general knowl-
edge that Huerta had accepted the friendly offices of the self -proposed
mediators. I asked him whether, in the event of successful mediation,
his plans for the betterment of Mexico would be carried out.

' * I hope so, " he replied, * * for it is not my intention, having begun
this enterprise, to turn back — unless I am forced to do so— until I
have assurances that the great and crying wrongs the people have
endured are in process of satisfactory adjustment. Of course, it
would not do for us to insist on an exact procedure for the partition
of the land, for example, for that would set us up in the position of
dictators, which we are not and never shall be ; but it is not our inten-
tion to cease in our friendly ofSces until we are assured that all these
matters are on their way to successful settlement. It is a great and a
complicated question, but I have every hope that a suitable solution
will be found, and that the day will come when the Mexican people
will be put in full possession of the land, the liberty^ and the peaceful
prosperity that are rightfully theirs."

President Wilson banged the desk again. His smile vanished and
his face became stem and set.

* * And eventually, ' ' he said slowly, * * I shall fight every one of these
men who are now seeking and who will then be seeking to exploit
Mexico for their own selfish ends. I shall do what I can to keep
Mexico from their plundering. There shall be no individual exploita-
tion of Mexico if I can stop it."

He walked over to the big blue globe.

''It is a wonderful country," he said as he put his fiinger on
Mexico, **a wonderful country. There is every advantage there for
the peaceful and prosperous pursuit of happiness. Have you ever
noticed that if you draw a line straight south from New York it will
touch the western coast of South America instead of the eastern, and
that it runs along by Chile and Peru, and the other countries on the
western side of the southern continent?

**Thus, with the Panama Canal running practically north and
douth, this brings these countries which have be^i so remote into close

APPENDIX 391

touch with us, and the commerce of this Western Hemisphere will
brood over Central America.

* * What we desire to do, and what we shall do, is to show our neigh-
bors to the south of us that their interests are identical with our inter-
ests; that we have no plans or any thoughts of our own exaltation, but
have in view only the peace and the prosperity of the people in our
hemisphere. ' '

The little clock on the bookcase struck nine. The President rose.
He walked down the stairs with me, and took his hat to go across to
his ofSce, where there was to be a conference on the vexing situation
in Colorado. As we parted at the end of the corridor he held out his
hand and said:

'*lt will be a great thing not only to have helped humanity by
restoring order, but to have gone further than that by laying the
secure foundations for that liberty without which there can be no
happiness. ' *

892 APPENDIX

(2) The President's Mexican Pouct — ^Presented in an Auth(»ized
Interview bt Secretary of the Interior Franklin E. Lane,

July 16, 1916

"President Wilson's Mexican policy is one of the things of which,
as a member of his administration, I am most proud. It shows so
well his abounding faith in humanity, his profound philosophy of
democracy, and his unshakable belief in the ultimate triumph of lib-
erty, justice, and right. He has never sought the easy solution of any
of the difficult questions that have arisen in the last three years. He
has always sought the right solution.

"Mr. Wilson's Mexican policy has not been weak and vacillating.
It has been definite and consistent, firm and constructive. How firm
is already known to those who have sought to force American inter-
vention in Mexico; how constructive will best be appreciated fifty
years from now by the whole world. It was to Mexico perhaps more
than to anything that the President referred the other day when he
said that he was playing for the verdict of mankind.

"The policy of the United States toward Mexico is a policy of
hope and of helpfulness; it is a policy of Mexico for the Mexicans.
That, after all, is the traditional policy of this country — it is the
policy that drove Maximilian out of Mexico. ' '

Secretary of the Interior Lane made this statement to me at his
summer camp on the shores of Lake Champlain, and then he launched
out into a forceful declaration of the principles underlying President
Wilson's Mexican policy and proceeded to give the reasons for his
conviction that the President was right when he refused to recognize
Huerta, and declared that the murderer of Madero must go, right
when he occupied the port of Vera Cruz, right when he accepted the
offer of mediation extended by the ABC, right when he abided by
the agreement reached at Niagara Falls, right when he withdrew
from Vera Cruz, right when he recognized Carranza as head of the
de facto Government, and right when he sent the United States
Army into Mexico after the bandit raid on Columbus. Mr. Lane
said:

"The doctrine of force is always fighting with the doctrine of
sympathy, and the trouble with the two schools of warism and pacifism
is that neither one will recognize that both philosophies have a part
to play in the life of every individual and of every nation and in

APPENDIX 893

the production and advancement of that strange thing we call civiliza-
tion.

''Now, the doctrine of force has been worked to its limit in Mexico.
President Wilson believes that the doctrine of sympathy should have
its chance in that country and this is the foundation of his Mexican
policy. Not that Mexico wants our sympathy. It does not — and that
is one of the great difficulties we have to contend with. Another is
that it takes a long while to make, a Mexican believe that we intend his
country good and not evil. The people of Mexico have inherited the
pride of Aragon, and the thing above all others that they do not
want and will not stand for is that kind of sympathy which is nothing
but pity.

''The sympathy that Mexico needs is the sympathy, of under-
standing. The United States should be what the Latin Americans
call 'muy simp&tico.' We have no exact English equivalent for that
expression, but if there is one thing it does not mean it is sympathy
as we Americans use the word. Uncle Sam will be 'muy simp&tico'
to the Mexican people only when he has a conscientious regard for
and realization of the feelings and the desires of the Mexican and
understands his best side, his aspiring nature.

' ' Mexico is a bad neighbor now. There is no use in denying this.
We live at peace with Canada on our northern border, without a
soldier along 3,000 miles of land, while, as a matter of necessity, we
are obliged to keep an armed force on our Mexican border all of the
time, and have now gathered there the largest army assembled in the
United States since the Civil War. The superficial reason for this
is that Mexico cannot settle her own troubles at home and that the
de facto government has been unable to prevent bandits from harass-
ing us.

"Our neighbor's sewage is running over into our lot, and we must
find some way to stop it even if we have to go over the boundary line
and stop the pipes ourselves. This is the easiest thing in the world
to say, but to respect the letter of the law and at the same time abate
a nuisance that is not on your own property is one of the most diffi-
cult things in the world.

' ' Mexico will always be a nuisance to us until a few fundamental
reforms are put into effect there. If it is to be lasting, however,
someone inside of Mexico must do it. It cannot be done by us unless
we are prepared not only to conquer Mexico but to annex Mexico.
We should not only have to make war on Mexico and impose peace
by force, but after giving it a preliminary cleaning up we should
have to establish and maintain indefinitely a government there.''

394 APPENDIX

I asked Secretary Lane to go over the history of the past six years
in Mexico with me and to tell the World the reasons which had gov-
erned the policy and actions of the United States Oovemment as each
emergency arose. In complying with this request Mr. Lane said :

**Diaz was a great man, a very great man. I doubt if, with the
possible exception of Bismarck, there was a greater man alive in his
day. After the Czar of Russia he was the most absolute despot of
modem times. He built a monument to himself, which I beUeve is
still standing, to celebrate thirty years of peace in Mexico, and all
the nations of the earth sent representatives to its unveiling. Within
two years he was an exile because that monument represented order
alone and the aspirations of only a very small portion of his people.

''The peace that he had maintained was an imposed peace not
coming from the people themselves. Diaz ruled by fear. He had
gone into office with promises upon his lips, and I am willing to be-
lieve that he meant to keep them. But once in power he was appalled
by the span of years necessary for the slow process of constructive
civilization, and he determined that to gain time Mexico was to be
saved by two things, force and wealth.

''And so, while observing to some extent the letter of the con-
stitution he cynically avoided its spirit. He always placed property
rights before human rights. Although he sought to improve, and did
improve, Mexico's material condition it was without even so much as
a thought of her moral progress. He kept the masses of the people in
subjection by keeping them in ignorance. When he died eighty-three
per cent of the people could neither read nor write, and as far as her
political development went, Mexico was no further forward and no
more fitted for self-government than in 1821, when, having wrested
her independence from Spain, she was first recognized as a sovereign
nation by the United States.

"During Diaz's time I had a very interesting talk with a great
lawyer in Mexico City who was an officeholder in the Diaz regime.
I asked him the current question: 'After Diaz, whatt' To my sur-
prise the man said: 'I am a Constitutionalist. Either before Diaz
dies or immediately upon his death a revolution will break out in
Mexico having for its purpose three things — ^the restoration of the
land to the people, the establishment of public schools throughout
the country, and a judicial system in which the courts will decide
according to law and not according to executive desires.'

"The Madero revolution followed exactly on these lines, but
Madero was a dreamer, an idealist, a man who took his constitution
seriously and who failed for two reasons, or rather because of two

APPENDIX 395

weaknesses of his own character. He was not strong enough to sup-
press the rapacious rascals who surrounded him, and he was not
practical enough to deliver the goods that he had promised. Men in
Madero's own government saw in his revolution only another oppor-
tunity for getting rich quick, and they ruined him while he was still
dreaming.

^'Huerta was his commander-in-chief, a soldier trained by Diaz
and dominated by Diaz's friends. He, too, believed in saving Mexico
by force and wealth ; he was in complete sympathy with the philosophy
expressed in the Diaz administration. There is no truth in the oft-
repeated allegation that all the trouble with Mexico would have been
avoided if President Wilson had recognized Huerta. I ask anyone
who wishes to be fair to this administration to look back three years
and read the newspapers of that day and the debates in Congress in
which the murder of Madero and Suarez was denounced.

''Had we recognized Huerta or had we not taken a positive stand
against him, the criticism this administration has received for the
policy we have pursued would ■•be as nothing to what would now
overwhelm us. Who were the American statesmen who demanded
Huerta 's recognition! What one of our leaders of either party set
forth the principles upon which a better feeling between this country
and all of our sister Republics of the South could be stimulated by
taking a position that was abhorrent to our American conscience t

'*We know what we have suffered in the past three years, and it
is too easy now to say that all this would have been avoided if
Huerta had been recognized, but the only demand made at that time
by the more solid of our men of affairs who were antagonistic to the
administration 's policy was that we should intervene ; that we should
bring order to Mexico by force.

'*No one then believed and no one really believes now that the
recognition of Huerta would have solved the Mexican problem. We
do know, however, one thing that we were not conscious of then, that
Huerta himself had so slight a hold upon Mexico that he did not dare
to leave the capital and that he was to all intents and purposes a
prisoner of the reactionaries, able only to reach the sea at its nearest
point.

''Although it is self-evident that this country, as the champion of
constitutional government in America, can never recognize a military
despotism based upon assassination, it is not necessary to call Huerta
an assassin in order to justify our refusal to recognize him. His
attempted dictatorship was but a fiction of government. With the
elected President and Vice-President murdered and the minister of

896 APPENDIX

state, who was their lawful successor, cowed into submission, Huerta
took the reins of power at the best as a temporary stop-gap.

''The revolution against Huerta broke out immediately upon the
news of Madero's death. The correspondence between Huerta and
Carranza recently published shows that every practical inducement
was held out to Carranza to put an end to his revolutionary move-
ment. To Carranza 's credit, be it said, he refused to come to terms
with those who he believed had been the cause of the President's
death and who had set to one side the laws of his country.

' ' It is not to be forgotten that Huerta did not pretend even to be a
constitutional ruler. He sent word to the United States that he had
taken the Qovernment of Mexico into his own hands and that he was
all the law that was to be found in Mexico. His statement was so
bold that even the Supreme Court of Mexico uttered a feeble protest,
which was somewhat more loudly echoed in the Mexican Senate.

' ' In the face of this Huerta asked for recognition from the United
States, but President Taf t felt that he could not conscientiously grant
it, and he left the problem to be dealt with by his successor, who had
already been elected. That was the situation when President Wilson
took office. Could President Wilson have recognized Huerta t Surely
there can be but one answer to that question — No!

**To have recognized Huerta would have been a twofold injustice:
First, to the people of Mexico, and, secondly, to all the people of
South and Central America. To give to the commander-in-chief of an
army recognition as President under such circumstances would have
been to announce to all ambitious military officers that they had but
to ally themselves with a successful junta, seize the Qovernment by
force, murder the lawful incumbents, and announce the overthrow of
all law and a supreme military dictatorship in order to gain the
recognition of the United States, we being thoroughly aware of all
that had happened.

'' Americans are justified in the pride that through the operation
of the Monroe Doctrine there is gradually growing up in the New
World a civilization that will make old-time revolutionary methods
impossible, that will carry forward all of the twenty-one Bepublics
to the unification of our international interests in the true spirit of
Pan Americanism. We have so amplified the Monroe Doctrine that we
are virtually the copartners of the Bepublics to the south of us, and to
proclaim that the violation of their constitutional laws would not in
the slightest interfere with our recognition of a conspiracy to murder
lawful executives and overthrow their established republican forms
of government would have been rightly considered by the American

APPENDIX 897

people as the most cowardly and short-sighted policy imaginable.
Condemnation would have arisen not only from the people of the
United States but from all the nations of the Pan American Union.

'^During Huerta's regime we learned much of the ability of the
Mexican as a casuist. The notes that came from Mexico were models
of the seventeenth-century style of diplomatic state paper. President
Wilson attempted, it will be remembered, to find a basis upon which
there could be set up in Mexico a government that we could recog-
nize. There was nothing peremptory about our attitude in the be-
ginning of the diplomatic exchanges.

''Our whole effort was to the obtaining of a republican form of
government in Mexico which would have the people back of it, and
guarantees against the establishment of an absolutism on our southern
border under which the people of Mexico would so chafe that we
should have a constant state of revolution there.

''Many of the best Mexicans were in sympathy with the attitude
that the United States took toward Huerta. They knew that stability
of government was not to be hoped for under a man of his tempera^
ment and disposition. After it became evident, by continued nego-
tiation which ended nowhere, that Huerta was standing, so to speak,
in the City of Mexico heaping insolence on the United States, Presi-
dent Wilson gave notice that Huerta must go.

"Then followed the Tampico incident. Our sailors landed at
Tampico and were arrested, marched through the streets in ignominy,
and eventually returned to their boat. The admiral in charge was so
incensed at their treatment that he immediately made upon Huerta a
demand that a national salute should be fired in atonement for the
insult to the flag. Again the Mexican Qovemment attempted to con-
tinue its policy of diplomatic quibbling.

"Meanwhile the revolution had gained such headway in the north
that it was difScult from day to day to say which force had or occu-
pied the greatest portion of Mexican territory. Huerta was keeping
up his resistance because he was being supplied with ammunition from
abroad. A ship was reported ready to land at Vera Cruz with a
cargo of arms, and as a warning to Huerta and in proof of the seri-
ousness of our purpose to bring Huerta to a recognition of our atti-
tude, the order was given to seize the custom house and occupy the
port of Vera Cruz.

"We did not go to Vera Cruz to force Huerta to salute the flag.
We did go there to show Mexico that we were in earnest in our demand
that Huerta must go, and he went before our forces were withdrawn.
The occupation of Vera Cruz was carried out without diflftculty, with

898 APPENDIX

the loss of nineteen of our brave sailors and marines, and if aggres-
sion and intervention had been our aim we could have easily seized the
railroad to Mexico City and occupied the capital.

''The menacing attitude of the Mexican troops surrounding our
force of occupation at Vera Cruz made hostilities appear imminent,
and again the strongest kind of pressure was brought to bear upon
the President to intervene, that we should go into Mexico and take
matters into our own hands. This is the one thing that the President
has set his face against from the first. It is the thing to which this
administration is opposed so long as any other hope holds out."

' * But, Mr. Secretary, ' ' I asked, ' * could not the United States have
done in Mexico what it did in Cubat"

*'No," said Mr. Lane, ''we could not. That is a very common
delusion, but the Mexican situation is not at all that which we met
in Cuba. We went in there at the request of the revolutionists and
after the Maine had been sunk in Havana harbor, and such authority
as there was in Cuba had thus evidenced its hostility. We could
go in and did go in there with some heart, fighting alongside of the
revolutionists against a monarchy, but we could not go in with any
heart to fight against the Mexicans who are struggling to find a way to
popular government. But to return to the facts :

"We had sought to bring to our sympathetic support all of the
South American countries. They also were anxious for a settlement
of this trouble upon some basis that would safeguard the interests of
Mexico and conserve that unity which is the soul of the great Pan
American movement. Some of them thought that they saw a greedy
hand from the north reaching down with no benevolent purpose, and
if it laid hold of Mexico none of them knew but that it might be their
turn next.

"This fear of the big brother is a very real one in Latin America.
They do not know us intimately ; they are suspicious of our motives.
They think of the Mexican War of 1846 as an unjustifiable aggression
on our part; they think of the Panama incident as a robbery; they
misconstrue our purpose in Santo Domingo, and in Nicaragua, and
they do not trust us. They fear that the spirit of imperialism is upon
the American people and that the Monroe Doctrine may be construed
some day as a doctrine that will give the whole Western Hemisphere
to the United States ; that it is a doctrine of selfishness and not a doc-
trine of altruism.

' * Those who are familiar with the feeling of the South and Central
American countries toward the United States know that just at that
time, when our forces occupied Vera Cruz, a very intense fear had

APPENDIX 399

seized upon Latin America. They believed in their hearts that we
were on our march southward and that the President's Mobile speech
and other generous utterances of the same sort were to be taken in a
Pickwickian sense.

''When they presented a plan of mediation, the United States
had no choice but to accept it. Indeed, if we had refused to accept it,
Latin America would have been justified in doubting our good faith.
No one that I am aware of, either Republican or Democrat, has ever
criticized the President for accepting the mediation of Argentina,
Brazil, and Chile, and abiding strictly by the agreement reached at
Niagara Falls.

'*By the protocols there signed on June 23, 1914, the United
States agreed that the selection of a provisional and constitutional
President be left wholly to the Mexicans, and we guaranteed our
recognition of them when chosen. This made clear our desire not to
interfere in any way in the settlement of Mexico's domestic troubles,
and as a further proof of our disinterested friendship for the Mexican
people the United States agreed not to claim any war indemnity or
other international satisfaction from Mexico. We had gone to Vera
Cruz *to serve mankind.' Our only quarrel was with Huerta, and
Huerta got out on July 16, 1914. Our forces were withdrawn from
Vera Cruz on November 23 following.

'* Three days after Huerta left Mexico Villa began levying taxes
on his own authority, and it was plain that the successful revolution-
ists would soon be fighting between themselves. Both Carranza and
Villa agreed to a conference at Aguascalientes, and it was stipulated
that no soldiers were to be there ; but Villa turned up with an armed
force that terrorized the convention and prevented it from recog-
nizing Carranza, and in a short while open warfare began between the
two factions.

''Villa and Carranza had broken, and there was a double sov-
ereignty claimed even on our border in northern Mexico. Things
were going from bad to worse, and it was suggested in the Cabinet
that there should be some determination by the United States as to
which of the rival claimants to power in Mexico as leader of a suc-
cessful revolution should be recognized as a de facto government.

' ' Secretary of State Lansing thereupon caUed a conference of the
representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and
Guatemala and asked them, from their knowledge of the situation — ^f or
a considerable portion of the information in the hands of the United
States came through the representatives of these countries in Mexico —
to co-operate with him in the determination of the claimant to be

400 APPENDIX

recognized. Theae six Latin-American Catholic countries unani*
mously recommended the recognition of Carranza, and in furtherance
of our Pan American policy this recognition was at once given by the
United States and Latin America.

''Since Carranza 's recognition we have seen Americans who have
gone into Mexico on peaceful errands murdered; we have seen our
own towns upon the border raided and Americans slain on American
soil. These outrages prompted President Wilson to send our troops
into Mexico, and this course cannot be otherwise construed than as a
recognition of the fact that the de facto Government of Mexico,
recognized by ourselves and by other nations, is not fulfilling the duty
which one Qovernment owes to another.

''We are in Mexico to-day, and how long we shall stay and how
far we shall go depends upon the policy and the power to keep the
peace of the Carranza Qovernment, but we shall go no further than
we have gone until every effort to secure effective Mexican co-opera-
tion fails."

Then Mr. Lane proceeded to an examination of the principles
governing the policy of the United States toward Mexico and of the
needs of the Mexican people. He said :

"There are things that a democracy must always be willing to
fight for. But what thing is there that any American can say we
ought to be willing to fight for in Mexico t Is it because railroads
built with American capital have been damaged, that mines have
been shut down, or even that American citizens have been killed by
outlaws and bandits t

"All those things we can and do very much regret, but who will
say they are great principles for which a democracy should be willing
to sacrifice the blood of its sons t Who can formulate out of the whole
history of the past six years any other determination than this : That
we should resist the temptation to fight where pride and interest
move us in that direction, and that we should and will fight when
we are attacked and when we find no other means by which our inter-
ests can be safeguarded and Mexico be given any hope of itself!

"We have been on the edge of war with Mexico several times in
the last three years, but each time, before the determination was made
that we should discard our hopes, there has opened some way by ^ich
reasonable men might expect that Mexico could prove herself able
to take care of her own problems. The one man who can justifiably
criticize President Wilson for his Mexican policy is the man who hon-
estly believes that Mexico cannot be brought to stability of government
and responsibility except through the exercise of outside force. That

APPENDIX 401

man is consistent, and the only criticism I have to make of him is a
criticism of his judgment.

''There is no question that we could easily overrun Mexico. I
believe we could do it with a comparatively few men, although we
would have a united Mexico against us. There would be no glory in
such a war, and there is not one man in ten thousand in this country
who really wants such a war. It would be repugnant to every Ameri-
can tradition and would discourage the friendship of every other
American nation. Of course we could conquer Mexico, and after a
good deal of guerrilla warfare we could bring Mexico to a state of
quiet.

''Then we could hold her while we administered to her the medi-
cine that we believe she needs. We could have what we call a general
cleaning up, the rebuilding of her railroads, of her wagon roads, the
construction of sewers for her cities, the enforcement of health regu-
lations, and all the other things that go to make up the outward and
visible signs of order and good government.

"But don't you see that the peace we would bring would be a
peace imposed by force, the government we would give to Mexico
would be the kind of government that we have and which makes life
tolerable to us in our communities? Its standards would not be Mexi-
can standards, its ideals would not be Mexican ideals, its genius
would not be Mexican genius. The moment we withdrew from
Mexico there would be a return after a very short time to Mexican
standards.

"What Mexico really needs and must be allowed to do is to raise
her own standards; it is to give herself a cleaning up by herself.
That is bound to take time, but in no other way can Mexico get a
government that will be expressive of her own ideals, that will be
expressive of some aspiration of her own as to what her civilization
should be, and in this we want to be of help to Mexico if she will
allow us to do so.

' ' The Mexican problem, as a problem, depends upon your attitude
toward other peoples. Mexico is a land to conquer, and the Mexican
people are a people to be conquered and subordinated and the country
and its resources made ours, if you look upon a smaller and less
highly civilized country as a proper object of exploitation. On the
other hand, Mexico is a country out of which something greater can
be made, and the Mexican people are a people who have possibilities
and can be helped to become a self-governing nation, and if you take
that attitude toward Mexico you are bound to sympathize with their
struggle upward.

402 APPENDIX

**In other words, where we find that conditions justify revolu-
tion, if we think it our business to go in and work the revolution to
our profit, we must condemn the President 's policy ; but if, where we
find conditions justify revolution, we want to give that revolution a
chance to work out from the inside, we must hold up his hands."

''What are the things that Mexico needs, Mr. Secretary t" I asked.
''What is necessary for a return to peace and order!" Mr. Lane
said:

' ' The things that Mexico needs are few, but they are fundamental.
A land-tax system which will make it impossible to hold great bodies
of idle land for selfish reasons and which will make it unnecessary
for the Qovemment to sell concessions in order to support itself.
A school system by which popular education may be given to all the
people as it is given in the United States. If Diaz had done this,
as he promised, he would have created an active public opinion in
Mexico which would have made present conditions impossible.

"Along with the primary schools should go agricultural schools in
which modem methods of agriculture should be taught. The army
might well be used as a sanitation corps, so as to insure against the
recurrence of those plagues which so affect trade relations with Mexico
and the health of her people. With these things, Mexico would be well
started on her way toward that better era which her more intelligent
revolutionists thought she had reached in the early days of the Diaz
administration, some forty years ago.

"Everyone in Mexico is united upon the proposition that the
present land system is based upon privilege and is unjust. I have
talked with twenty of the wealthiest and most intelligent men who
belonged to the Diaz regime. All have admitted the fact. Some have
even volunteered the statement that Mexico is in a feudal state, and
that the land belongs to great proprietors, who work the peons and
keep them in a semi-slave condition. If the facts were better realized,
the people of the United States would not stand for the labor condi-
tions that exist in Mexico, and for the peonage, which is only a form
of slavery. I have some personal knowledge of these conditions.

' ' One morning ten years ago I was on a coffee finca — a great estate
high up in the Sierra Madre — and I asked a peasant who labored from
sunrise to sunset what he was getting for his day's work. His answer
was 60 cents in Guatemalan money, which was equal to 10 cents gold.
Here was a strong, able-bodied agricultural laborer earning $3 a
month. I asked him why he did not go down to the railroad, where
the American contractors would pay him 50 cents or more a day.
His answer was, 'I would not be from here one mile before Don

APPENDIX 408

Porfirio would have reached out his hand and drawn me back to jail. '
I said, 'Why could he arrest you!' and the answer given me, falter-
ingly and in fear, was, 'Because I owe the store.'

'^He had lived and worked on that finca for twelve years; alive or
dead, he is there to-day, unless he has run away to join an army in
the revolution. I asked that Mexican peon where he had come from,
and he pointed across the mountains to a valley where his people had
lived for a thousand years. *Why did you leave there! ' I inquired.
His answer was that Don Porfirio had given the land where he was
bom to a Chinaman.

' ' From an investigation I made myself I found out that this was
literally true; that the land, which was the hereditary possession of
these Indians, had been taken from them by the Qovemment and
given to a greater 'company' on terms which one can only guess; that
the 'company' had sold the land to a syndicate, in which there were
no Americans, upon condition that it should be populated under a
law somewhat similar to our homestead law, with the reservation that
it was neither to go to Mexican natives nor to citizens of the United
States, and the immigrants with which the syndicate was populating
that part of Mexico were Chinamen.

"I crossed a bridge on the Camino Real. 'The last time I crossed
that bridge,' said the peon who was with me, 'the governor of the
State was lying there dead. He had become ambitious and presented
to the people a program of reform. Doubtless he hoped to be another
Juarez, and Don Porfirio had ended his ambitions.' The peon of
Mexico— and out of possibly 15,000,000 inhabitants at least 12,000,000
are peons — is a kindly and gentle creature under normal conditions,
disregardful of his own life but not anxious to make war on anyone.
The peon has it forced upon his mind that he belongs to a definite
sphere of life, and so he is without ambition and without foresight;
but he is not without intelligence, and he makes an excellent workman
when taught. All he needs is a chance to live and a chance to learn,
land to cultivate, and schools to go to. Is it conceivable that to add to
the miseries of these struggling people any American citizen would
want to make war on themt

"We of the United States have the impulse that all virile people
have. We feel conscious of our ability to do a job in nation making
much better than anyone else. Read over Kipling's poem, 'The
White Man's Burden.' It was not so much the white man's duty to
clean up insanitary conditions on the outskirts of civilization and to
develop the backward peoples of the earth that he was expressing
as it was our perfect, self-complacent appreciation of our supreme

404> APPENDIX

ability to do the cleaning up better than any other people on the
face of the globe.

''There is a good deal of the special policeman, of the sanitary
engineer, of the social worker, and of the welfare dictator about the
American people. We are quite conscious that in the development of
this great country of ours, in our march across the continent, we
have done a perfectly good job, and the pioneering spirit is very much
alive. It is one of the most fundamental instincts that has made white
men give to the world its history for the last thousand years.

''As a great Nation, dedicated to democracy, we cannot under-
take a war of conquest against a people because their moral develop-
ment has been neglected by their former rulers. We can, however,
insist, and we must insist, that these people shall make safe our
borders and give protection to the lives and property of our nationals
who have settled in Mexico at her invitation."

"But is there no way, Mr. Secretary, in which the United States
can help Mexico on the road to progress t" I asked. Mr. Lane said:

"To directly offer help to Mexico would be looked upon by them
as an insult, like slapping them in the face. This is a kind of pride
that is purely Latin. It is an inheritance that comes to Mexico by way
of Spain along with the ideals that Cervantes ridicules in 'Don
Quixote'; but it is so real a thing that no progress can be made with-
out recognizing it. So I say that to tell Mexico what she shall do in
our straight-out American fashion, to say to Mexico, We are going to
help you without being invited to do so, is equivalent under present
conditions to a declaration of war.

"The Mexicans do not believe in our professions of altruism.
We must say to Mexico one of two things : Either you must keep our
border safe and protect the rights of our nationals in Mexico, which
you have not done, or we will invade your country and restore order
ourselves; or we must say to Mexico, We understand the effort you
are making to give the people a chance for life, liberty, and the pur-
suit of happiness, and we will gladly help you if you ask our help to
accomplish this end.

"The last is the policy that the United States has been seeking
to put into effect. The difficulty in doing this arises almost solely
out of the difficulty we Americans have in persuading the peoples
of Latin America that our intentions are really honest.

"Nor is this altogether to be wondered at. Latin America has
known the American chiefly as a seeker after concessions, a land
grabber and an exploiter. Even where the American has bought
property, as many have who to-day hold perfectly legal title to the

APPENDIX 405

land, they are absentee landlords, and every just criticism that the
Irishman has had to make against the absentee English landlord can
be made against the absentee American landlord in Mexico.

''He does not become a part of Mexico; he does not throw in his
lot with the Mexicans. He is willing to spend his money there and
employ labor, but he has nothing in common with the people of the
country. The Mexican feels that the American goes there only to get
rich out of the land and labor of Mexico ; that he comes to exploit, not
to develop."

Mr. Lane had risen. He was standing on the raised veranda of
his camp overlooking the placid waters of Lake Champlain. ''There
are just two more things that I want to say," he continued.

"There has never been a time since the United States estab-
lished the present Mexican border under the treaty of Quadalupe
Hidalgo when raids, small or great, have not taken place across that
border, and sometimes Americans have been the raiders — ^we may as
well acknowledge the fact. Furthermore, there never has been a time
since the United States was founded when Mexico itself was a whole
in the control of any one Qovemment. Even Diaz never had the
Yaqui Indian country, never really controlled Sonora.

"A police force alone has been a failure in Mexico. A failure
both as far as the Mexicans are concerned and in protecting Ameri-
can life and American property. American life and American prop-
erty have both been repeatedly assailed and destroyed during every
administration. The protection of our people there has always been a
problem, and I believe always will be a problem. This hazard any
foreigner takes who goes into a country filled with people who would
risk their lives for a horse or a saddle.

"Further, I say this: That looking at Mexico solely from the
standpoint of allowing our miners, our engineers, and our capitalists
to develop that country for their own benefit, and only incidentally
for the benefit of Mexico, a policy of force is all that Mexico needs.
It is the only policy that has ever been tried upon the Mexican people,
and it has proved a success for the exploitation of the country by out-
siders. If, however, we look at the Mexican question from the stand-
point of the Mexican, is the policy of force adequate to the problem t
No one who has studied it will say so. The truth is this :

"Mexico will never be a nation in any real sense, nor will the
Mexicans ever be a people of agricultural, commercial, industrial, or
political consequence until the individual Mexican has had an economic
and an educational chance. He must be tied to Mexico, and not to a
landlord, by the ownership of a piece of land ; he must be able to read

406 APPENDIX

and write, so that he may know what the needs of civilization are.
This policy is that which I characterized as a policy of hope and
hopefulness. It is founded on doubt and despair. It refuses to recog-
nize the Mexican who can only be shot into keeping order.

''If we despair of these people, who is to be their friend t Are
we Americans to see Mexico forever remain a land of a few rich and
cultivated gentlemen, and 12,000,000 half-starved, ill-clothed, and il-
literate peasants — ^men, women, and children — kept in slavery and
subjection and ignorance, a people into whose lives comes nothing that
raises them above the beasts of the field t

''The people of the United States cannot conceive of such condi-
tions. Is it not time to try another policy than that of force alone,
which has failed so miserably and wrought such woet Is President
Wilson to be criticized because he believes that it is not idealistic, not
outside the range of reasonable hope, to think of America as the help-
ful friend of Mexico f Why may not Mexico be led to see that we are
honest in our willingness to help and that we can do itt

"President Wilson has clearly seen the end that he desired from
the first, and he has worked toward it against an opposition that was
cunning and intensive, persistent and powerful. If he succeeds in
giving a new birth of freedom to Mexico, he most surely will receive
the verdict of mankind.'^

APPENDIX 407

THE MEXICAN QUESTION

(3) The Abticle bt Presidekt Wilson Reprinted Here Appeared
IN THE Issue of the ''Ladies' Home Journal" for October, 1916

Large questions are difficult to state in brief compass, but they
can be intelligently comprehended only when fully stated, and must
to all candid persons seem worthy of the pains. The Mexican question
has never anywhere been fully stated, so far as I know, and yet it is
one which is in need of all the light that can be thrown upon it, and
can be intelligently discussed only by those who clearly see all that
is involved.

In the first place, it is not a question which can be treated by
itself as only a matter between Mexico and the United States. It
is a part, a very intimate part, of the Pan-American question. The
two Americas can be knitted together only by processes of peace,
friendship, helpfulness, and good will, and the nation which must of
necessity take the initiative in proving the possibility of these proc-
esses is the United States.

A discussion of the Pan-American question must always begin
with the Monroe Doctrine, and very little light will be thrown upon it
unless we consider the Monroe Doctrine from the point of view of
Latin-America rather than from the point of view of the United
States.

In adopting the Monroe Doctrine the United States assumed the
part of Big Brother to the rest of America. The primary purpose
of the policy was to prevent the extension to the American Hemisphere
of European influences, which seemed likely to involve South America
and eventually ourselves as well in the net of European intrigue
and reaction which was in that day being spread with so wide a sweep
of purpose. But it was not adopted at the request of the American
Republics. While it no doubt made them measurably free from the
fear of European aggression or intervention in their affairs, it neither
gave nor implied any guarantee on the part of the United States
that we would use our power for their benefit and not for our own
aggrandizement and advantage.

As the power of the United States has increased, the uneasiness

408 APPENDIX

of the Latin- American republics has increased with regard to the use
we might make of that power in dealing with them.

Unfortunately we gave one very disquieting example of what we
might do when we went to war with Mexico in Mr. Polk's time and
got out of that war a great addition to our national territory.

The suspicion of our southern neighbors, their uneasiness as to
our growing power, their jealoui^ that we should assume to play Big
Brother to them without their invitation to do so, has constantly stood
in the way of the amicable and happy relations we wished to establish
with them. Only in very recent years have they extended their
hands to us with anything like cordiality, and it is not likely that
we shall ever have their entire confidence until we have succeeded in
giving them satisfactory and conclusive proofs of our own friendly
and unselfish purpose.

What is needed for the firm establishment of their faith in us
is that we should give guaranties of some sort, in conduct as well as
in promise, that we will as scrupulously respect their territorial
integrity and their political sovereignty as we insist that European
nations should respect them.

If we should intervene in Mexico, we would undoubtedly revive
the gravest suspicions throughout all the states of America. By
intervention I mean the use of the power of the United States to
establish internal order there without the invitation of Mexico and
determine the character and method of her political institutions. We
have professed to believe that every nation, every people, has the
right to order its own institutions as it will, and we must live up to
that profession in our actions in absolute good faith.

Moreover, ''order" has been purchased in Mexico at a terrible
cost when it has been obtained by foreign assistance. The foreign
assistance has generally come in the form of financial aid. That
financial aid has almost invariably been conditioned upon "conces-
sions" which have put the greater part of the resources of the
country which have as yet been developed in the hands of foreign
capitalists, and by the same token under the ** protection" of foreign
governments.

Those who have successfully maintained stable order in Mexico
by such means have, like Diaz, found that they were the servants^
not of Mexico, but of foreign concessionaires.

The economic development of Mexico has so far been accomplished
by such ' ' concessions ' ' and by the exploitation of the fertile lands of
the republic by a very small number of owners who have accumulated

APPENDIX 409

under one title hundreds of thousands of acres, swept within one
ownership the greater part of states, and reduced the population of
the country to a sort of peonage.

Mexico is one of the treasure houses of the world. It is exceed-
ingly to be desired by those who wish to amass fortunes. Its resources
are indeed serviceable to the whole world and are needed by the
industries of the whole world. No enterprising capitalist can look
upon her without coveting her. The foreign diplomacy with which
she has become bitterly familiar is the ''dollar diplomacy," which
has almost invariably obliged her to give precedence to foreign inter-
ests over her own. What she needs more than anything else is financial
support which will not involve the sale of her liberties and the enslave-
ment of her people.

Property owned by foreigners, enterprises conducted by foreigners,
will never be safe in Mexico so long as their existence and the method
of their use and conduct excite the suspicion and, upon occasion, the
hatred of the people of the country itself.

I would not be understood as saying that all or even the majority
of the foreigners who have owned property in Mexico or who have
developed her extraordinary resources have acted in a way to excite
the jealousy or deserve the dislike of the people of the country. It
is fortunately true that there have been a great many who acted with ^
the same honor and public spirit there that characterized them at
home, and whose wish it has never been to exploit the country to its
own hurt and detriment.

I am speaking of a system and not uttering an indictment. The
system by which Mexico has been financially assisted has in the past
generally bound her hand and foot and left her in effect without a
free government. It has almost in every instance deprived her
people of the part they were entitled to play in the determination of
their own destiny and development.

This is what every leader in Mexico has to fear, and the history
of Mexico's dealings with the United States cannot be said to be
reassuring.

It goes without saying that the United States must do as she is
doing — she must insist upon the safety of her borders; she must, so
fast as order is worked out of chaos, use every instrumentality she
can in friendship employ to protect the lives and the property of her
citizens in Mexico.

But she can establish permanent peace on her borders only by a
resolute and consistent adoption in action of the principles which

410 APPENDIX

underlie her own life. She must respect the liberties and the self-
government of Mexicans as she would respect her own. She has pro-
fessed to be the champion of the rights of small and helpless states,
and she must make that profession good in what she does. She has
professed to be the friend of Mexico, and she must prove it by seeing
to it that every step she takes is a step of friendship and helpfulness.

Our own principles and the peace of the world are conditioned
upon the exemplification of those professions in action by ourselves
and by all the nations of the world, and our dealings with MeiSco
afford us an opportunity to show the way.

Mexico must no doubt struggle through long processes of blood
and terror before she finds herself and returns to the paths of peace
and order; but other nations, older in political experience than she,
have staggered and struggled through these dark ways for years
together to find themselves at last, to come out into the light, to
know the price of liberty, to realize the compulsion of peace, and the
orderly processes of law.

It is painful to observe how few of the suggestions as to what
the United States ought to do with regard to Mexico are based upon
sympathy with the Mexican people or any effort even to understand
what they need and desire. I can say with knowledge that most of
the suggestions of action come from those who wish to possess her,
who wish to use her, who regard her people with condescension and
a touch of contempt, who believe that they are fit only to serve and
not fit for liberty of any sort. Such men can not and will not
determine the policy of the United States. They are not of the true
American breed or motive.

America will honor herself and prove the validity of her own
principles by treating Mexico as she would wish Mexico to treat her.

APPENDIX 411

(4) Memorandum on the Bight of American Citizens to Travel
UPON Armed Merchant Ships, Transmitted to the Com-
mittee ON Foreign Affairs of the House of Repre-
sentatives, March 4, 1916

The question to be considered in the present memorandam is
whether Americans intending to travel on armed belligerent merchant
vessels should be warned by the United States that in doing so they
travel at their own risk, and that the United States should so warn its
citizens about to embark upon armed belligerent merchant vessels.
This raises the question whether or not a neutral citizen and subject
can avail himself of a belligerent armed vessel for the transport of his
person or goods, the determination of which seems to depend upon the
further and the fundamental question whether a belligerent merchant
ship may, without violation of law, carry armament to defend itself
against attack upon the high seas.

The conclusions to be sustained by this memorandum, and which
it is believed are supported by the practice of nations, are that a neu-
tral has the right to transport his person and property upon armed
belligerent merchant ships; that the vessels so armed may defend
themselves if attacked by the enemy ; that, in so doing, they are within
their rights under the law of nations as interpreted and applied by
the Supreme Court of the United States; and that the neutral does
not partake of a belligerent character although he is on board the bel-
ligerent merchant vessel, nor does he sacrifice his neutral character nor
the neutrai quality of his goods, according to the law of nations as
interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States, if the armed
belligerent merchant vessel resists attack, unless the neutral actually
took part in the hostilities committed under these circumstances by
the armed belligerent merchant vessel upon which his person may
happen to be.

The memorandum will also endeavor to show that, while the out-
break of war authorizes a belligerent to capture the private property
of his enemy upon the high seas, the declaration of war does not
operate as a confiscation of the property, but only authorizes the bel-
ligerent to use the force necessary to capture the property, and that,
according to the law of nations, the formalities hitherto recognized
must be complied with — ^namely, that a merchant vessel of the enemy
before capture must be summoned to surrender, and that upon its
surrender, whether after the use of force or an attempt to escape the

412 APPENDIX

capturing vessel, it shall not be sunk or destroyed without first putting
in a place of safety the persons on board and, if possible, the property ;
that the use of an agent or instrumentality such as the submarine that
does not and cannot comply with these requirements is not authorized
by the law of nations to capture the enemy vessel ; that the law ought
not to be changed to suit the convenience of the submarine or of the
belligerent, but that the agency of the belligerent ought to be changed
to meet the requirements of the law ; and that the requirements of this
law cannot be overcome by an ex parte announcement or warning
issued by a belligerent government that it will destroy without warn-
ing any merchant vessel of the enemy which the commanding officer
of that vessel may, before visit and search, decide to be an armed
enemy vessel.

The right of a belligerent vessel to arm is not the result of a
sudden decision on the part of a belligerent in order to protect his
merchant vessels from capture upon the high seas, but has been for
centuries the practice of nations. An armed merchant vessel differs
from a privateer, which was a vessel owned by a private person —
although commissioned by a belligerent and, by virtue of its com-
mission, authorized to commit hostilities and to make captures — in
that the merchant vessel carries its armament for defensive purposes
and is not commissioned by the government whose flag it flies. It is
therefore a merchant vessel, having none of the marks of a war vessel,
and its arms are for purely defensive purposes, to protect it from
capture, a protection it would enjoy without armament if the policy of
the United States, extending over a period of a century, were recog-
nized to-day — ^as it was, in 1785, recognized by Prussia in the treaty
of September 10 of that year. It is not, however, necessary to con-
sider this matter in the light of history or in the light of theory, be-
cause, in so far as the United States is concerned, the right of an
enemy merchant vessel to arm itself for defensive purposes has been
solemnly adjudged in the case of the Nereide (9 Cranch 388), decided
in 1815, and, upon reconsideration, affirmed three years later in the
case of the Atalanta (3 Wheaton 409). The judgment of the court
in the first, which is the leading case on the subject, was written and
delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, in the course of which he said :

A belligerent has a perfect right to arm in his own defence and a
neutral has a perfect right to transport his goods in a belligerent ves-
sel. These rights do not interfere with each other. The neutral has
no control over the belligerent right to arm— ought he to be account-
able for the exercise of it? By placing neutral property in a belliger-
ent ship, that property, according to the positive rules of law, does

APPENDIX 413

not cease to be neutral. Why should it be changed by the exercise of
a belligerent right, universally acknowledged, and in common use when
the rule was laid down, and over which the neutral had no control t

The Nereide was a British merchant vessel. It was not commis-
sioned, so that it did not partake of any of the characteristics or enjoy
the rights or privileges then accorded to privateers, and which the
United States at the present day could accord to its privateers if it
availed itself of the right to use them. It was armed for defense. It
was attacked and it defended itself. The neutral, with his cargo, was
aboard the vessel. He took no part in the armed resistance, and the
Supreme Coxut of the United States laid down the rule that neither
his rights as a neutral nor his property as that of a neutral were
affected by the resistance to the capture by the belligerent armed ship.
As this decision is so important, and is binding upon the United States
— for the decision of the Supreme Court on a point of law binds all
departments of the Government until it is changed, which it has not
been to the present day — it is more advisable to quote certain por-
tions of the opinion to the Court rather than to indulge in theoretical
speculations, however well grounded they may appear. Thus, Chief
Justice Marshall said:

That a neutral may lawfully put his goods on board a belligerent
ship for conveyance on the ocean, is universally recognized as the
rightful rule of the law of nations. It is, as has already been stated,
founded on the plain and simple principle, that the property of a
friend remains his property, wherever it may be found. *' Since it is
not," says Vattel, **the place where a thing is, which determines the
nature of that thing, but the character of the person to whom it be-
longs, things belonging to neutral persons, which happen to be in an
enemy's country, or on board an enemy's ships are to be distinguished
from those which belong to the enemy.*' Bynkershoek lays down the
same principles in terms equally explicit; and in terms entitled to
the more consideration, because he enters into the inquiry whether a
knowledge of the hostile character of the vessel, can affect the owner
of the goods. The same principle is laid down by other writers on the
same subject, and is believed to be contradicted hy none. It is true,
there were some o7d ordinances of France, declaring that a hostile
vessel or cargo should expose both to condemnation; but these ordi-
nances have never constituted a rule of public law.

After laying down this general principle and supporting it by author-
ity, if authority other than that of his own great name and of his
unanswerable reasoning be required, the great Chief Justice continues :

It is deemed of much importance, that the rule is universally laid
down in terms which comprehend an armed as well as an unarmed
vessel; and that armed vessels have never been excepted from it.

414 APPENDIX

Bynkershoek, in discussing a question, suggesting an exception, with
his mind directed to hostilities, does not hint that this privilege is
confined to unarmed merchantmen. In point of fact, it is believed,
that a belligerent merchant vessel rarely sails unarmed, so that this
exception from the rule would be greater than the rule itself. At
all events, the number of those who are armed, and who sail under
convoy, is too great, not to have attracted the attention of writers
on public law: and this exception to their broad general rule, if it
existed, would certainly be found in some of their works. It would
be strange, if a rule laid down, with a view to war, in such broad
terms as to have universal application, should be so construed, as to
exclude from its operation almost every case for which it purports
to provide, and yet that not a dictum should be found in the books,
pointing to such construction. The antiquity of the rule is certainly
not unworthy of consideration. It is to be traced back to the time
when almost every merchantman was in a condition of self-defence,
and the implements of war were so light and so cheap, that scarcely
any would sail without them.

But the Chief Justice was not content to lay down principles. He
stated and answered the arguments which had been addressed to the
court in the trial of the case. Thus :

To the argument, that by placing his goods in the vessel of an
armed enemy, he connects himself with that enemy, and assumes the
hostile character ; it is answered, that no such connection exists. The
object of the neutral is the transportation of his goods. His connec-
tion with the vessel which transports them is the same, whether that
vessel be armed or unarmed. The act of arming is not his — ^it is the
act of a party who has a right so to do. He meddles not with the
armament, nor with the war. Whether his goods were on board or not,
the vessel would be armed and would saU. His goods do not con-
tribute to the armament, further than the freight he pays, and freight
he would pay, were the vessel unarmed. It is difficult to perceive
in this argument an3rthing which does not also apply to an unarmed
vessel. In both instances, it is the right and the duty of the carrier to
avoid capture, and to prevent a search. There is no difference, except
in the degree of capacity to carry this duty into effect. The argument
would operate against the rule which permits the neutral merchant to
employ a belligerent vessel, without imparting to his goods the bd-
ligerent character.

It will be observed that in this passage the Chief Justice, speak-
ing under a sense of judicial responsibility and passing adversely
upon a contention advanced by his own government in the war of 1812
with Great Britain, states it to be *'both the right and the duty of
the carrier to avoid capture and to prevent a search," whether the
vessel be armed or unarmed. Having stated that it is the duty of
the carrier to avoid capture, the conclusion necessarily follows, which
the Chief Justice himself draws in the succeeding paragraph, that

APPENDIX 416

' ' the argument respecting resistance stands on the same ground with
that with respect to arming. Both are lawful. Neither of them is
chargeable to the goods or their owner, where he has taken no part in
it. They are incident to the character of the vessel and may always
occur where the carrier is belligerent."

In a later passage of his opinion, Chief Justice Marshall assimilates
the status of passengers to the status of cargo, and in so doing ac-
knowledges the right of passengers to their neutral character upon a
belligerent armed merchant vessel, just as the property of such a
person is regarded as neutral property. Thus he says :

If the neutral character of the goods is forfeited by the resistance
of the belligerent vessel, why is not the neutral character of the pas-
sengers forfeited by the same cause f The master and crew are prison-
ers of war, why are not those passengers who did not engage in the
conflict, also prisoners f That they are not, would seem to the court
to afford a strong argument in favor of the goods. The law would
operate in the same manner on both.

Recapitulating, it appears to be incontrovertible that the decision
of the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly acknowledges
the right of a belligerent to resist attack, and that this right is to be
considered not merely as a decision of the United States on this point
but as a decision in accordance with the dictates of international law,
based upon universal usage and authority, which the Chief Justice
applied, and which he was obliged to apply, in a case involving its
principles. It also appears to be incontrovertible that the vessel not
merely had the right to arm and to resist, but, in the language of
the Chief Justice, it was **the duty of the carrier to avoid capture"
by the use of such arms and resistance, and, as the Chief Justice said
in another passage, ''she had a right to defend herself, did defend
herself, and might have captured an assailing vessel;" and that the
neutral has the right to be a passenger and to transport his prop-
erty on such a vessel, and does not have his neutral character ques-
tioned, even although the ship, armed for defensive purposes, exer-
cises the right by resisting capture.

This decision of the Supreme Court, delivered in this instance by
Chief Justice Marshall, has not been overruled and is the law of the
land at the present day.

A right which has been shown universally to exist is presumed to
continue to exist until it has been shown that it no longer does ex-
ist, and any country claiming that the law has ceased to exist cannot
relieve itself of the burden of proof ; and in this connection another
passage is quoted from a decision of the Supreme Court of the

416 APPEXDIX

United States, likewise delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. In speak-
ing of the slave trade, which was at that time lawfnL Chief Justice
Marshall said, in the case of the Antelope (10 Wheaton 66, 122), de-
cided in 1825 :

In this commerce thus sanctioned by universal assent, every na-
tion had an equal right to engage. How is this right to be lost? Each
may renounce it for its own people; but can this renunciation affect
others f

No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged, than
the pei^ect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights.
It results from this equality, that no one can rightfully impose a rule
on another. Each legislates for itself, but its legislation ean operate
on itself alone. A right, then, which is vested in all, by the consent
of all, can be divested only by consent; and this trade, in which all
have participated, must remain lawful to those who can not be induced
to relinquish it. As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none
can make a law of nations; and this traffic remains lawful to those
whose governments have not forbidden it.

A careful examination fails to disclose any action taken to ques-
tion the lawfulness of belligerent merchant vessels to arm in self-
defense. The abolition of privateering by the Declaration of Paris —
to which, however, the United States was not and is not now a party —
did not affect the right of a private merchant vessel to carry and to use
arms in self-defense, because the Declaration of Paris abolished merely
the right of privateering, and did not directly or indirectly affect
the rights or duties or the privileges of private merchant vessels, as
such. The right, therefore, of merchant vessels to arm in self-defense
was unaffected by the Declaration of Paris and there is no other inter-
national convention or international act to be found questioning the
existence of that right.

In some quarters the claim has been advanced that merchant ves-
sels armed for defense are practically privateers. This claim has no
basis in fact. A privateer was a private vessel, admittedly armed
for offense and acting under a letter of marque or other government
commission which removed it from the class of merchant vessels. By
the fact of the government commissions, privateers were authorized to
act offensively without committing a breach of the laws of warfare,
and the captain and owners of the privateer were further placed under
a measure of government responsibility to which the owner and cap-
tain of an ordinary merchant vessel are not subject. A merchant
vessel armed for defense only is one whose status is entirely un-
changed except for her armament. She does not operate under any
commission of the government and her captain and owners are not in

APPENDIX 417

any special sense responsible to the government by virtue of any
commission or other governmental authority issued in her behalf.
Should she use her armament offensively she will thereby render her-
self liable to the consequent results under international law ; but the
mere fact of her having an armament on board does not change her
status from that of a merchant vessel to that of a vessel of war, which
a privateer was.

The right of a merchant vessel so to arm was not questioned until
the actions of belligerents indicated an intention on their part to use
converted merchant vessels for offensive purposes, and for fear that
unconverted merchant vessels should be so used, the Second Hague
Peace Conference laid down the conditions upon which merchant ships
might be incorporated in the fighting fleet in time of war. This Con-
vention was signed and ratified by both Germany and Great Britain,
and regardless of any technical question as to whether it is in force in
the present war, may be taken as indicating their views upon this
subject which has now become so important. According to the Con-
vention, before a merchant vessel may be considered a warship it
must:

1. Be placed under the direct authority, immediate control, and
responsibility of the power whose flag it flies (Art. 2).

2. It must bear the external marks which distinguish the war-
ships of their nationality (Art. 2).

3. The commander must be in the service of the state and duly
commissioned by the competent authorities. His name must figure
on the list of the officers of the fighting fleet (Art. 3).

4. The crew must be subjected to military discipline (Art. 4) .

5. A belligerent who converts a merchant ship into a warship
must as soon as possible announce such conversion in the list of war-
ships (Art. 6).

In the face of the provisions of this Convention, one of the signa-
tory and ratifying powers seeks to maintain that a merchant vessel
may be considered a warship, regardless of whether the provisions
of this Convention have or have not been complied with. It is sig-
nificant, in this connection, that the United States, in order to retain
full liberty of action with reference to the use of merchant ships in
time of war, neither signed, ratified, nor adhered to this Con-
vention.

The declared intention of belligerents to convert merchant vessels
to war vessels and the policy of nations to have merchant vessels built
in such a way that they might carry armament, and thus be more use-
ful when converted, suggested the possibility that merchant vessels

418 APPENDIX

of belligerents might, by means of defensive armament, exercise their
right (and their duty, according to Chief Justice Marshall) to defend
themselves from capture by these converted merchantmen, whereas
they would not have been able to offer resistance to heavily armed
men-of-war built solely for offensive purposes.

The question, therefore, as to the right of merchant vessels to
arm became a subject of discussion and a matter of moment to those
nations which might wish to use converted merchant vessels as com-
merce destroyers.

The question of the right of merchant vessels to arm and to de-
fend themselves was carefully considered just a year before the out-
break of the war of 1914, in the session of the Institute of Interna-
tional Law, composed of distinguished publicists of the different coun-
tries, which, meeting at Oxford, England, in August, 1913, adopted
a Manual of the Laws of Maritime Warfare. Article 13 of the project
of the Commission charged with the preparation of the Manual reads
as follows :

Privateering, Private vessels, Public vessels not vessels of war. —
Privateering is forbidden.

In addition to the conditions laid down in Articles 3 and following,
public vessels and vessels belonging to private persons, as well as their
personnel, cannot commit acts of hostility against the enemy.

It is permitted, however, to vessels of each of these two classes to
employ force to defend themselves against the attack of an enemy
vessel.

The discussion of the meeting turned entirely upon the last para-
graph. Dr. Triepel of Gtermany asked its suppression, saying: ''A
ship of commerce never has the right of defending herself even if the
attack of which it is the object is illegitimate. It is not for her to
make herself the judge on this point." His point of view was opposed
by Dr. Piore, of Italy, who said that if private ships can never attack
it is at least legal for them to defend themselves, and even make
legitimately a prize under this hypothesis if they find they have the
material and force necessary. He congratulated himself at seeing in
the text of the commission the confirmation of this rule of Italian
legislation, and later on he said: '^The question is at bottom very
simple. Force should be able to be repulsed by force in whatever
manner this manifests itself," and asked the vote on Article 13 just
as it stood. Lord Beay, of Great Britain, supported Dr. Piore 's view
of voting Article 13 just as it was written in the pro jet, and he men-
tioned that the legitimacy of the permission given by the Admiralty
to certain large liners to have four guns on board has been contested.

APPENDIX 419

even by distinguished persons. The text of paragraph 3 of Article
12 would cause every objection to disappear on this point. Lord
Reay asked of the Institute to announce for ships of commerce the
right of legitimate defense in the conditions contemplated. The
article was adopted as written in the projet by a large majority and
is now published as a part of the Manual in the Annuaire of the In-
stitute. The whole Manual was adopted by 53 out of 54 members
present, one (an Italian delegate) abstaining.

In the discussion, Dr. Niemeyer, a delegate from Germany, said
that the right of self-defense against an act of force goes without
saying, and he proposed to suppress the last paragraph of Article 12
(13 of the projet), for the reason that the fact of inserting a pro-
vision of that kind was equivalent to a concession that a contrary
opinion was possible. It is thus seen that the delegates from (Ger-
many were not in accord among themselves, and in view of the large
majority in favor of Article 12 and of the final almost unanimous
approval of the total Manual, it appears that very recent and very
intelligent opinion supports the view that the arming of merchant
ships for defense is entirely proper, and that such an armament may
be used properly for defense.

Considering that the right of a belligerent merchant vessel to
arm itself for defensive purposes is in accordance with the practice
and the law of nations, and that it was as laid down by the Supreme
Court of the United States, and considering also that the right has
been carefully considered and examined by an uno£Scial but scientific
body, whose views have influenced, and rightly, the actions of govern-
ments, the question naturally arises, if the belligerent can capture
private property of the enemy upon the high seas, what are the condi-
tions, if any, which must regulate the exercise of the right of capture!
The statement of Chief Justice Marshall in the case of the Nereide is
sufficient authority for the right of a belligerent to capture the pri-
vate property of the enemy, if authority were needed, but the point
is so well admitted that a quotation of authority for this universally
acknowledged right would be a waste of time. It should be said,
however, in this connection, that the immunity of private property
on the high seas has been the traditional policy advocated by the
United States, formulated by this Government before the existence of
the present Constitution, and this Government therefore would not be
justified in relaxing the rules relating to capture.

Universal practice permits the capture of private property of the
enemy upon the high seas. The fact, however, that neutrals may be
interested in property on board of a captured ship has resulted in the

420 APPENDIX

enlightened practice obtaining before the outbreak of the war of 1914,
to preserve the property captured, and to pass it before a prize court
in order to determine the validity of the prize by a court of justice
passing upon the evidence in the case, instead of virtually allowing
a naval commander to set up a prize court upon the quarterdeck to
determine the enemy character and to take such action as might occur
to him in the premises. The practice of nations before the outbreak
of the present war was for a belligerent vessel having to make capture
to summon the vessel suspected of being an enemy ship to lie to. If
it did not do so, the belligerent war vessel was authorized to proceed
to the use of force necessary to complete surrender. If the enemy
vessel attempted to escape it was the right of the belligerent man-of-
war to give pursuit and to use such force as was at its disposal to
compel the ship to halt, even although the vessel should be sunk in
the conflict. The practice which crystallized into law on the question
was that, ad the enemy vessel had the right and the duty, as Chief
Justice Marshall said, to avoid capture, either by resisting attack or
by escaping if it were able, the vessel so exercising its right and per-
forming its duty was not subjected to punishment therefor; and en-
lightened practice at the outbreak of the current war required that
the vessel should not be sunk if it could be taken into port, or, if it
was sunk, that this should not be done until the persons on board and,
if possible, the property, had been saved. This was the procedure
prescribed in the Imperial German Prize Ordinance, issued on the 3d
day of August, 1914.

The right of a submarine to carry on hostile operations is not
questioned. It is a public vessel, built for a military purpose, duly
commissioned, under command of commissioned naval officers, with a
crew subjected to military discipline. It therefore is a man-of-war
and entitled to exercise the rights thereof in so far as her structure
and personnel permit such exercise in accordance with international
law. It is likewise bound by all the obligations resting upon a man-
of-war. It does not have any greater rights than a man-of-war would
have, and is not relieved of any duties of a man-of-war which operates
upon the surface. It may summon a merchant vessel to lie to. It
can, however, exercise the right of visit and search under exceptional
circumstances only. Its limited personnel does not admit of furnish-
ing prize crews. On the other hand, it cannot take on board the per-
sonnel of captured ships to insure their safety if the destruction
of the prize is intended. Its commander can rarely, if ever, secure
the papers on board a prize. In fact, it is a vessel which was origi-
nally designed for military action against military vessels^ where

APPENDIX 421

safety of personnel and warning of attack are not essential. By its
limitations it cannot, unless the circmnstances be exceptional, act as
a cruiser against commerce and fulfill the requirements of inter-
national law and the dictates of ordinary humanity.

If the United States yields the point that its citizens have not
the right to travel on armed merchant ships of belligerents, to the ex-
tent of the public warning by the legislative branch of the Govern-
ment to United States citizens not to take passage on such vessels, it
will, in the face of its own precedents, in effect consent to a change of
international law, which will result to the advantage of one belligerent
and to the disadvantage of his adversaries. This would be unneutral.
Furthermore, it would be consenting to a change of international law
during war, a thing against which the United States has earnestly
and steadily protested in other international questions that have
arisen during the war.

The conditions under which enemy merchant vessels can be de-
stroyed were correctly laid down by the German Government in oflS-
cial instructions issued to its naval ofScers at the beginning of the war.
The German Prize Code {Prizenordnung) of the 30th September,
1909, and issued at the beginning of the war, is given in its amended
form as in force July 1, 1915, after the submarine warfare against
merchant vessels had begun, in a book entitled The Oerman Prize
Code, translated by Huberich and King (Baker, Voorhis & Co., New
York, 1915). Articles 113 to 116, inclusive, and Articles 118 and
119 refer to the destruction of prizes. Article 113 refers to the de-
struction of neutral prizes. Article 114 reads, translated:

Before the commander determines on the destruction of a vessel,
he must consider whether the damage thereby done to the enemy will
outweigh the damages payable for the parts of the cargo not subject
to condemnation (op. arts. 18, 42, 51, 56 and 80), and which are de-
stroyed at the same time.

Article 18, referred to in Article 114, must be read in connection
with Article 17. Those two articles read as follows :

17. A captured enemy vessel is subject to condemnation.

18. The following parts of the cargo of such vessels are subject
to condemnation :

(a) Enemy goods;

(b) Goods belonging to the master and owner of the vessel, if the
vessel was captured by reason of resistance (see art. 16b).

(d) In case of breach of blockade, goods liable to confiscation
under art. 80.

422 APPENDIX

From this reference in Article 114 to Article 18, which latter
depends upon Article 17, referring to a captured enemy vessel, it is
plain that Article 114 refers to the destruction of any prize, whether
enemy or neutral. Therefore, following the regulations, if they do not
specifically mention enemy or neutral vessels they must apply gen-
erally. Article 116 reads:

Before destruction, the safety of all persons on board, and, so far
as possible, their effects, is to be provided for, and all ship's papers
and other evidentiary material, which, according to the views of the
persons at interest, is of value for the formulation of the judgment of
the prize court, are to be taken over by the commander.

By this article the destruction of no vessel can take place without
first providing for the safety of all persons on board. This refers to
persons of the enemy as well as to persons of the neutraL This hu-
mane rule, found in the German Prize Code after the inauguration of
submarine warfare, is identical with the wording of the same rule in
the Prize Code as it was originally issued at the beginning of the cur-
rent war.

The submarine warfare was entered into by Germany as a measure
of reprisal and not in accordance with the laws of maritime warfare,
which are so well expressed in the prize ordinance, and the illegality
of the destruction of vessels without the formalities recognized by
their own Prize Code in pursuance of a policy that is itself illegal as
toward the interests of neutrals, especially when these interests involve
the sacrifice of life, should not be admitted for one moment by this
Gtovemment.

In considering the issue of a warning to American citizens against
traveling upon armed merchant vessels of the belligerents, it must
not be overlooked that the United States has an obligation to protect
the property of its citizens as well as to protect their lives. If citi-
zens are warned not to intrust their lives upon armed merchant ships
of the belligerents, the same reasons would compel the United States
to warn its citizens not to intrust their property to armed merchant
ships; for, as pointed out by Chief Justice Marshall, the right to
travel and the right to transport goods are legally identical. If the
warning be carried to its logical results, there would be a voluntary
surrender of the rights of American citizens to trade with belligerents,
which right it has been sought, especially as it affects the trade in
munitions, to limit in a direct way, and it has been the subject of
negotiations in which the United States has already taken a firm
stand. It is not to be expected that this Oovemment should submit

APPENDIX 428

indirectly upon a point which it has heretofore declined to submit to
directly.

Passing from the subject of contraband, it would seem that if
this policy be adopted, it would logically follow that a warning should
also be issued to American citizens against intrusting non-contraband
cargoes to armed vessels, and that they should be told that if they
intrust their property to such vessels and it is sunk by a submarine,
there will result a total loss and the Government will not be in a
position to make a claim for its value, because the merchant vessel
happened to be exercising its lawful right of carrying defensive
armament.

The situation should not be overlooked with which the United
States would be confronted in case a warning to American citizens
not to travel upon armed merchant vessels of belligerents be issued.
In view of the variety of deceits, stratagems and subterfuges which
the present war has produced, it will have to be determined definitely
whether a merchant vessel comes within the prohibited class, not only
when it sails from our ports but also at the time of attack. The
question will also arise for consideration as to the attitude which the
United States is to take if an ostensibly armed vessel leaves our ports
with American citizens on board and is sunk by a submarine on the
ground that it was armed after leaving an American port. The ves-
sel and probably all persons and evidence on board for determining
the question of armament will be at the bottom of the sea. The United
States may provide for the inspection of all belligerent armed mer-
chant vessels before they leave port, but the Government operating
the submarine is at liberty to accept or reject the finding of the
American inspector, and, if it thinks proper, to insist upon the accu-
racy of the report of its submarine commander. The diplomatic
correspondence which has already passed between the United States
and other governments on this point need only be referred to to show
the probability of such an issue being raised. If the United States
should admit the contention of the government so operating the sub-
marine, it might follow that all merchant vessels would be sunk upon
the ground, real or alleged, that they were armed. In such a con-
tingency, no real progress would be made in settling the issue which
has arisen by voluntary relinquishment of the undisputed and im-
memorial rights of American citizens to transport both their persons
and property upon armed merchant vessels of belligerents. A warn-
ing issued to American citizens to avoid armed merchant vessels of
the belligerents would, it is believed, merely shift the point of con-
troversy from a discussion of the character of the arming of merchant

424 APPENDIX

vessels as oflfensive or defensive to the broader question whether any
armament at all is aboard the vessel.

The position this Government has taken is briefly as follows :

Neutrals have a right to travel on merchant ships in time of war
in the full assurance that their lives are safe from illegal attack.

An unannounced attack on a merchant ship is illegal.

Merchant ships have the right to arm for defense.

The highest court of the United States, in the words of one of its
most distinguished jurists, Chief Justice Marshall, has distinctly af-
firmed this right, and the United States is therefore the last to be able
to contest it.

The arming of a belligerent merchant ship impairs no neutral
right.

As the arming of a merchant ship for defense is not illegal and
does not impair any neutral right the United States has no ground to
demand that it be discontinued by the belligerents practicing it.

It is not illegal for a belligerent to destroy an enemy merchant
ship after capture, whether that ship be armed or not, provided that
the destruction be done after the requirements of international law
have been observed.

Submarines, if they observe the preliminary requirements of inter-
national law, are vessels that may, in so far as their status and that of
their personnel is concerned, make captures.

If, however, they cannot, owing to their limitations, observe all
the requirements of international law in making captures, neutral
governments cannot admit their right to go beyond the act of capture
and actually destroy merchant vessels without warning, in disregard
of the requirements of international law and especially of the one
grounded on decency and humanity — ^the safety of innocent human
life — without surrendering national self-respect and national sov-
ereignty, which would be a betrayal of the national honor.

The United States Government cannot, without such betrayal, pub-
licly warn its citizens to renounce their rights in the face of a bel-
ligerent threat to do an illegal act, for such warning would be in effect
an admission of the right of submarines to destroy merchant vessels
illegally.

Individual citizens are free to act as their individual judgment
may dictate, but for the United States Government to advise them to
refrain from doing what they have a right to do in safety according
to law, without exposing their lives to danger, would be to abdicate
its function of protecting its citizens not only in their rights but in
their lives.

ifffWfiS

DUE JUN ti 192tl

/^ I . . ■ ■ 1 •

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Full text of "President Wilson's foreign policy; messages, addresses, papers;"

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